Summary: Hyacinth flowers generally symbolise playfulness, joy, sincerity, and springtime. You thought everything was fine and that you didn't have to worry anymore. You just hoped your daughter would be spared.
Word Count: 7,416 words
Tags: angst, miscommunication, fluff, mentions of child neglect, mention of classist attitudes towards the reader.
Part II, Part III
My dearest Prince,
It has been two days since you departed, and in those two days our Princess Hyacith has let the whole keep know her displeasure at the fact you are not there to sing her lullabies and tuck her in for her nap. Her sweet little face goes red from how much she cries, and her gaze is fixed on the door, waiting for your arrival.
Do not worry; she does not cry all the time. She enjoys the company of her big brother, who takes her out to the gardens to play, and her Grandsire, who purposely skips meetings with the small council and goes straight to the nursery. Your father tried to sing the same high valyrian lullabies you sang her, but she does not find the King’s singing abilities enjoyable and fusses when he starts a song. I’ve managed to make her fall asleep by wrapping your shirts around her.
Our little girl is not the only one who misses you.
I just don’t have the luxury of screaming about it like Hyacith.
I miss you so much, my love.
I wake up, and the first thing i do is reach for you, and I get confused when i only feel the cold and unmade sheets. Your pillow is slowly losing your scent.
Come back to me as soon as you can. Give my love to Valarr, Kiera, Maekar and his boys.
Your loving wife.
...
My Darling Wife
Every day away from you and our children is torture if I dare be dramatic.
It breaks my heart to know how distressed our little princess is.
My poor little hyacinth, too small to understand the world but wise enough to know when something is missing.
The same way she looks at the door, waiting for my arrival, I find myself humming her favourite lullaby when deep in thought, thinking that her cradle is next to me and i’m lulling her to sleep. You have to forgive me, my lady, but before I left I stole your handkerchief, the one with hyacinths embroidered on it. It carries your scent, my love, and unfortunately, just like my pillow, yours is slowly fading away.
I too reach for your warmth when I wake up first thing in the morning, but I only have a cold side of the bed and the sounds of horses and garrisons as the reminder of the miles between us. Don’t count the days until you see me again, my love. I’ll be there before you realise it.
Your faithful husband, Baelor.
...
When the letters and trinkets stopped arriving, you did not get worried.
Your Baelor is a busy man. He could be far away from his study in the Red Keep, but he’ll still find a way to bury himself in matters of the realm. In the meantime, you spent your days taking care of your daughter, overseeing your stepson studying and looking after household matters.
The horrible news arrives when you are strolling through the gardens with the King. Ever since you married Baelor, you’ve become quite close to the King, a daughter he never had. A guard runs to the gardens, shouting for the King.
The Guard stopped in front of them, sweating and breathing rapidly.
“We have received a letter from Prince Maekar bearing urgent news…”
You did not know what to expect. A Blackfyre conspiracy. How you wished that were the cause. The Guard hands over Maekar’s letter, and the King quickly reads it over. He would’ve collapsed to the ground if he had not grabbed hold of you. You caught him and let him support your body against yours.
“Your grace!” You shouted.
The king was pallid, and his gaze was blank. He called your name and told you to get Mtarys. It was about his father. It was about Baelor. You guided the King to the guard and ran as fast as you could to the training yard where Matarys was.
When you find your stepson, you bring him to the gardens where the King remained. The King is sitting on the bench, crumpling the letter that had caused so much distress.
The King looks at Matarys with solemn eyes. He stands up. “My boy, before you panic, I need you to know your father is alright. He has been injured.” Yours and Matarys’ breaths hitched. “But he is alright. Your Uncle Maekar has assured me, and they are coming back.”
The King tells you, and Matarys tells you, that Baelor got injured after joining the side of a Hedge Knight during a trial of seven. Baelor fought bravely. Baelor was struck by his own brother's mace. Baelor lay asleep for two weeks with Maesters who did not know if he would live or die.
The Gods smiled at Baelor.
He woke up.
The King looked at you as he continued speaking. “The Maesters say a lot of things can happen to a man when he's struck hard in the head. Baelor woke up asking for Jena.”
...
Baelor arrives inside a wheelhouse, a contrast to the way he departed a month and a half ago.
A month and a half ago, he stood in the Keep’s entrance bidding his goodbye to you, Hyacinth and Matarys. He ruffled Matarys’ hair and told him to behave. He gave Hyacinth a cuddle and kissed her cheeks. He puts your daughter back into your arms and kisses you gently. You still remember how much his gaze was full of love and adoration towards you, towards his family.
As he rode his horse out of the gates, he looked over his shoulder where you still remained with Hyacith in your arms and Matarys by your side. You grabbed Hyacith’s arm and waved at him. He smiled and waved back.
Baelor Breakspear returned to the capital a different man. Well, not different. He returns as a man he hasn't been in years. He returns as Prince Baelor, husband of Lady Jena Dondarrion and father of Prince Valarr and Prince Matarys. You and your daughter may as well not exist.
You met Baelor one year after Lady Jena’s death. Baelor didn't intend to have a second wife, and you didn't intend to fall in love with him. You’re an orphan who comes from a House whose sigil and motto nobody could tell even if their lives depended on it. Only Baelor could answer it.
When he asked your house name, you felt embarrassed because you stood in front of the greatest man in the Realm, and you come from nothing extraordinary. You mumbled your full name, and without wasting a beat, he asked if you were related to a knight. You recognised the knight he named, your great-grand sire. You were shocked that he would remember such a thing. He wasn't a remarkable knight; he just had few tournament wins under his name, and that was it.
On that day you felt seen, and that was the start of everything.
It wasn’t a hot, passionate love affair.
It was built slowly over the years like a well-tended fire.
You were Lady Kiera’s lady-in-waiting.
You didn’t see Baelor every day.
You were busy attending the Young Prince’s wife.
He was busy being the Hand.
When you crossed paths, you would bow to him, and he would nod at you.
It was a practice dance between the two of you, but as time went on, the dance started to shift patterns, like the invisible minstrels had changed the tune of their instruments.
When you and Baelor crossed paths, you both slowed your paces as if to make the moment last longer. You would hold eye contact longer than it is appropriate for either of your statuses. You would walk forward, and when looking over your shoulder, he would be staring right back at you. It was you who made the audacious step of turning this dance into something more.
“It’s just a beautiful day today.” You said.
He almost looked stunned by your comment, but he then smiled and agreed with you. Then Baelor did his own audacious step; he asked if you wanted to take a stroll with him in the gardens. You accepted.
The wheelhouse stops in front of the awaiting group. Prince Maekar, who was riding his horse alongside, quickly jumped off the animal before a stable boy even arrived. He rushed to the Wheelhouse and opened its door. Lady Kiera is the first to come off and then Prince Valarr. The Young Prince lifts his hand to the inside, and a big but thin hand grabs it. Maekar approaches and lets the last person inside lean on his body.
The sight in front of you almost makes you want to faint, and Matarys grabbed your hand.
Baelor looked too thin and frail. His clothes looked baggy, and his face was sunken. His head was bandaged, and you could see a faint spot of red.
The King is the one to go to him first.
Baelor tries to stand straight in front of his father and king.
“My King,” He mumbled as if speaking was the hardest task he could perform. “Please give me time to recover and I shall attend to my duties…”
The King didn't let him finish. He walked to Baelor and pulled him into his arms.
Daeron Targaryen stripped his title and crown and held his firstborn, whom he almost lost. Baelor wrapped his arm around his father and rested his head against his shoulder. Maekar, who was holding Baelor upright, looked down in shame and was about to step away when Daeron grabbed him and brought him to his hold as well.
It was a heartbreaking sight.
“Matarys.” You called for your stepson lightly. “Go to your father.”
Matarys reluctantly lets go of your hand.
He approached shyly and stopped behind the King.
“Father.” He called out.
Baelor lifted his head and fixed his gaze at his youngest son.
Baelor’s mismatched eyes studied the boy in front of him; they go wide when it dawns on him who the boy is. Matarys was only eight years old when Jena died. He was now twelve. He carefully frees himself from his father's and brother’s grip, and with uncoordinated steps, he moves forward.
Baelor takes another step forward and loses his balance, dropping to his knees right in front of Matarys. Maekar rushes to his brother’s side. He was about to lift him, but Baelor raised his hand. He grabbed his youngest son and pulled him to his arms just like his father did a few moments ago. Matarys broke down and cried in his father’s arms.
"Shh...shh," He hummened. “When did you get so big, my boy?” Baelor asked as he patted his son’s arms and back.
A tear slips down your face, and you quickly wipe it away. It gave you hope. If he remembered his son with one glance. He may remember you as well.
The Maesters start to surround Baelor, ready to see the extent of his wound and see how truly bad it is. Baelor reluctantly lets go of Matarys and allows Maekar to get him up from the ground and escort him inside.
They walk to the entrance where you stood. Your body goes rigid. Should you call for him? Should you hold his arm? Should you introduce yourself?
You looked directly at Baelor, and he looked back at you.
You waited for that glimpse of recognition, but it did not arrive.
Baelor politely nodded at you. “My lady.”
You stayed there astonished.
You could almost laugh. That’s Baelor, alright. The man could have a limb hanging by a thread, but he would still slow down and greet the person in front of him just because he couldn't forget his good manners.
Maekar didn't look at you. His gaze was forward.
Coward! You think bitterly. Your brother would've looked me in the eyes!
Kiera walks to you and hugs you. You break down in her arms.
...
Maesters surrounded him and prodded his head.
They gave him Milk of the poppy, which made his senses go dull. He was in and out of consciousness. There was so much he wanted to ask and do. How was the realm? How were his sons? How was his father’s health? Where was Jena buried?
The maesters disperse, and he’s no longer being touched. His eyes were closed, but he could hear everything around him. He could hear them whispering among themselves about the side effects of his wound and how they could bring back some of his memories without causing emotional and mental distress.
He hears light footsteps coming inside the chamber.
“He just fell asleep.” He hears Maekar say. “You shouldn't be here.” His brother doesn't say it with a malicious tone, but Baelor nonetheless wishes to scold his brother. This person was a guest, a friend of his who wanted to check on his well-being.
He tried to open his eyes, but his lids were heavy.
The person doesn't respond to Maekar, nor do they obey him. In fact, they step closer to Baelor. Now Baelor wished he could see who this person was that was so bold to defy his brother.
The steps are light. A Lady, perhaps?
The bed dips as someone sits beside him. and his hand is held. It was a lady indeed. The hand was soft and warm. A contrast to his rough and cold skin. The lady rubs his hand delicately, warming him up.
The lady remains silent, but he could hear her sniff and a hitch in her breath as she held back a sob. He wanted to tell the lady to not waste tears on a fool like him. He tried to squeeze her hand, but his fingers still felt like wood.
No one speaks.
He could feel her gaze on him. Her hand grazed his knuckles slowly.
Another sound of footsteps appears along with the sound of clanking. A guard.
“My lady?” He calls.
The lady speaks for the first time. “Yes?”
Her voice is soft and gentle, just like her touch.
“Prince Valarr requests your presence.”
The lady pauses in her gestures, and Baelor mourns her touch. She sighs and carefully lays Baelor’s hand on the wool blanket.
He waits for her to get up and leave. She moves not away from him but towards him. She leans in, and Baelor could smell citrus fruits and oranges – a far cry from the medicine and incense that surround him. She presses her lips against his temple, and Baelor feels his heart skip a beat.
She gets up and starts to walk away, but Baelor wanted her to stay. He moved his head, and finally he managed to open his eyes, but his vision was blurry. He could only see the tail end of the Lady’s blue gown.
The Maester suggests you and Hyacith keep a respectful distance from Baelor so as not to create more mental distress for him.
...
You are to be a stranger to your own husband.
Who are you now?
You have no idea.
Are you still a wife even if your husband doesn't remember you?
Is your daughter a princess even if her father doesn't remember her conception?
You lie on your bed. The same bed you shared with your husband a few months ago with your daughter sleeping peacefully right beside you. You envy her. She doesn't know one of her favourite people in the world doesn't recall her existence. He doesn’t remember her laugh, her smile, how much he prayed for her and the love that he had for her. He doesn't remember how happy he was when she was born. A man who thought he would never hold another small child of his blood, especially a daughter.
“Forgive me, my lady, but I never thought I would feel so much love for a woman until you presented this blessing to my life.” He told you when he held her for the first time.
She doesn't know her father doesn't remember her mother.
He doesn’t remember the days where polite conversations turn into something deeper and meaningful. The days when you sought each other's eyes from across the room. The day he asked you to be his wife. The day you made oaths to one another in front of the Gods and men. The days of getting to know each other's bodies.
Baelor lies on a bed, not knowing on the other side of the Keep there are two people who have become important to him. He doesn't know there’s a possibility you carry his fourth child.
You haven't told anyone. You haven't sought a maester or midwife to confirm it, but you knew. You knew your body. The lack of blood wasn't your only clue. Your breasts were tender, and when Hyacith would squeal, screech or whimper, you would feel a tug on them. You felt nauseous. You craved oranges, the same cravings you had in your first pregnancy. You wanted to tell Baelor in your letters but decided you wanted to surprise him. You regret that choice now.
If you had told him your suspicions, would he have still joined the fight? Maybe he still would. He joined a fight knowing he had two small children waiting for him, and he still went ahead.
Seven! How you wished to whack him on the head as well!
...
“And this is Aemon the Dragonknight! My great-great-uncle! My brother was named after him. When Queen Naerys, my great-grandmother, was accused of adultery, he demanded her accuser fight him in a trial by combat and won!”
“Oh…”
You smiled as you watched Aegon escort the Hedge Knight around the Keep, and you smiled at the Hedge Knight, who was amazed at everything around him.
Hyacinth’s shrieks announce your presence in the corridor.
Aegon turned around and smiled when he spotted you and his cousin.
“Auntie!” He ran towards you.
The Hedge Knight lowered his gaze as he followed his young squire.
“Hello, Hyacinth!” He greeted her, grabbing her little hand.
“Hello, Egg.” You greeted him in return and looked at the Tall knight in front of you. “Will you introduce me to your friend?”
Egg smiled. “Aunt, this is Ser Duncan the Tall.”
The Knight stood straighter when you gazed at him, and his cheeks turned red.
“My lady.” He respectfully bowed his head.
“Ser Duncan the Tall this is my cousin, Princess Hyacith of House Targaryen and my aunt…”
Ser Duncan the Tall’s eyes go wider when Egg tells your name and your relationship to the royal. He began to speak, but his words were incoherent, and they did not make any sense. Then he dropped to his knees in front of you.
“My lady… Please forgive me for all that has happened!” He started rambling. “It was never my intention to drag the Hand into this mess! It was never my intention to cause this much harm to your family!”
“And what was your intention, Ser Duncan?” You asked.
Ser duncan lifts his head and looks with his sincere blue eyes. “To protect the innocent, my lady. As every knight should.”
You sighed.
“Egg.” You said. “Would you and Ser Duncan like to take a stroll with Hyacith and me?"
Aegon and Hyacith walk ahead of you and Ser Duncan.
Aegon holds Hyacinth's hands and teaches her how to walk.
“Another foot forward... another foot forward.”
Ser Duncan breaks the silence. “She looks like him.”
You nodded. “She does.” You nodded. “I was in labour two nights and one day, and she came out the spitting image of her father and brother.”
Ser Duncan smiled.
“And she has the audacity to prefer her father over me. The one who gave her life and fed from my very own breast.”
Ser Duncan let himself chuckle.
"Have you talked to him?” You ask, not needing to clarify who.
“I have, m’lady.” He answers. “His grace recovers well and has been able to walk well with the assistance of a cane.”
“Does he remember you?”
“No.” He shook his head. “But he does tell me that he would gladly let me join his kingsguard and serve him.”
“Do you plan on accepting it?”
“I’ll be honest with you, my lady. I don't know..." He continues. “I am grateful for the offer. It is something a Hedge Knight strives for his whole life but…”
“But?” You encouraged him.
“I don't feel ready to give up that life yet. Especially with Egg as my squire.” He explains. “He’s a good lad. A pain in my side… but a good lad. He could do so much better outside of places like these.”
You nodded. “I think you’re correct, Ser Duncan.”
“Your husband said the same thing. Even told Prince Maekar that he should reconsider it.”
That makes you pause.
Your husband.
Nobody has said that since Baelor’s return. As if the reminder were a dirty memory that shouldn't be evoked. As if that would cause him to break into pieces.
“I know it’s not the same, but I have lived that ‘Hedge Knight’ life before.” You told him. “I came from a House that wasn't worthy enough to be remembered in the lineage books. I couldn’t tell people which side they fought during the Dance of Dragons or the Blackfyre rebellion. My parents died when I was young, and I have been shipped off to every corner of the realm to various relatives. I learnt rather quickly to never get used to any keep I arrived at because I would be sent away before I could learn the names of the servants. I arrived in King’s Landing with one last favour and two ugly gowns in my name.”
Ser Duncan listened to you attentively.
“I don't know what you heard of me, Ser, but there are those who think I slithered my way into Baelor’s bed and seduced him into marrying me.”
Ser Duncan shook his head and stammered an apology and told you he would never believe such tales regarding your honour.
You laughed.
“Oh… How I wish I could tell these noblemen it was the other way around. He seduced me! I didn’t realise he actually wanted me for a wife until he took me to Dragonstone and knelt before me. A Prince knelt before me and asked me to be his wife! Do you know what I said?”
Ser Duncan blinked. “Yes?”
“Your Grace, get up! You are embarrassing yourself!” You said using the same shrieking voice you did years ago. “And he did not get up. He told me he would stay like that until I said yes. And I just… kept denying him! I tried to get him up from the ground, but he would not budge.”
You smile as you remember that day.
“No matter what objections I threw at him, he would fight back. ‘The King would never approve,' I said. 'The King already knows and has given us his blessing,' he said. ‘Your sons would not want a replacement for their mother,' I argued. ‘My son helped me choose the ring,' he argued back. ‘The court would never accept me,' I tried once again to bring him to reason. ‘The court would have to fight me if they disapprove of our union,' he said, still kneeling on the ground and holding the ring.”
“What made you say ‘yes’?”
You twisted your engagement ring. “I made him promise to never leave my side and ship me off to whatever corner of this realm. If he promises me that I will say ‘yes’.”
You wish to cry, but you will not cry. Not when it’s such a beautiful day.
“He will remember you, my lady. I am sure of it!” Ser Duncan reassured you.
“I hope so, Ser," You say. “Because who am I without my Baelor? I came from nothing and belonged to nothing, but Baelor never let me feel like I didn’t belong next to him. " You look at your daughter. “At least for my daughter’s sake, the Gods will guide him back to us.”
Hyacinth guided her cousin to you and Ser Duncan. She stopped in front of the tall knight and looked at him like she was studying him. She is definitely her father’s daughter. She pulled her hand from Aegon and grabbed Ser Duncan’s leg pant. Ser Duncan stood still like a statue, and he had a look of sheer panic on his face, as if it were a dangerous animal clinging to him and not a small child.
Hyacinth made a squealing noise and tried to climb Ser Duncan’s leg.
“It seems like the Princess wishes to know how you view the world, Ser Duncan.” You said humourously.
“You should do as your Princess asks, Ser," Aegon said, sharing your amusement.
Ser Duncan took a deep breath, rubbed his palms against his pants, crouched down and lifted the princess. He held her at arm's length away from his body. His breath hitched when Hyacith let out a screech.
“She prefers being held closer, Ser Duncan.” You gently pushed your daughter into Ser Duncan’s chest, and you could've sworn he stopped breathing.
Ser Duncan looked at Hyacith, who was looking back at him, and cleared his throat. “hum.. Evening, Princess.”
The little girl babbled in response.
You smiled, but you couldn't help the feeling like someone was staring at you. You turned around and saw a person retreating, but you could recognise that silver head from anywhere.
“Ser Duncan, Egg. I will be right back.” You said, not giving time to hear their answers as you went inside.
You catch Maekar just as he is going up the stairs.
“How is it that a Hedge Knight and your nine-year-old son have more guts to look me in the eyes than you, brother?” You asked, saying the last part rather sarcastically.
Maekar goes stiff and turns around, staring at you with a scowl. Years ago that look frightened you, but now it held no power over you.
“I would like to remind you, girl.” He hissed. “That you are speaking to a Prince of the Realm.”
“And I would like to remind you, your grace.” You said with your chin high. “That I’m still Princess of Dragonstone and your future Queen even if your brother doesn't remember me. I’m still a member of this family until the King says otherwise."
Maekar has never been warm with you. He’s only polite because you are his brother’s wife. Because the King likes you. He shares the same opinion the court has towards you: too unfit and unworthy to be the heir’s wife.
Maekar huffs and goes down the stairs. “You left your daughter with that oaf?”
“Ser Duncan is a good man. My husband saw that, so I trust him, and besides, he’s with your son, and you let him be your squire.”
“You trust him after he caused all of this.”
“Yes.” You said, feeling ready to defend Ser Duncan’s honour. “After all, it was not him who called for a trial of Seven. It was not him who swung the mace.”
Something flickered in Maekar’s eyes. Hurt? You did not know and you did not care. Baelor remembers him, and Maekar gets to see him every day. You haven't been able to talk to your husband and could only rely on the accounts from your stepsons, Kiera and the maesters about his well-being.
“If I could undo what happen…” He started.
“Spare me your sorrows, Maekar," You cut in. “I will only forgive when he remembers me. When my daughter stops crying herself to sleep because she heard her father’s voice and he did not come to her. When the baby inside of me…” You stopped when Maekar’s eyes went wide and he looked at your belly.
You turned around and walked away from him.
You owed him no explanation.
You owed him nothing.
You come back to Ser Duncan, still holding Hyacinth and asking Egg if she’s still breathing because she has gone quiet. Hyacinth was happily sucking on her fist.
...
Baelor doesn't like to be idle. He doesn't like to remain still. He also doesn't like to be coddled. He understands an injury like this needs to be taken care of properly, but he feels like he’s going to forget all his manners if another person asks if he’s alright.
It’s nighttime, and half of the Keep is asleep. Usually at this hour Baelor would be hunched over his desk and looking over his ledgers, but he’s not doing anything, and he hates that. He has probably counted every stitch and every flower in the canopy above him.
The wound has healed well, and he no longer needs bandages. He still gets headaches and has a persistent itch on his wound.
He lets out grunts when he sits on the bed. With deep breaths he grabs his cane and gets up from the bed. He walks out, ignoring the guard stationed at his door.
“A small walk, Ser.” He said, waving his hand when the knight started walking behind him. “I will be back before you know it.”
Baelor wished to know how much had changed in four years, and the cloak of the knight was perfect for it. There were no Lords and Ladies asking for his well-being and saying he’s in their prayers. It’s more quiet.
He heard a babe the other day when he was strolling through the garden with Valarr. That was odd; there weren’t a lot of babies in the Keep. The noble ladies usually leave them with nursemaids in their husbands' castles. He didn’t get to see the babe, but he did hear the poor thing cry.
Not much has changed; the walls and the banners were the same, but the gardens looked different. There was a section that was full of hyacinths of various colours and an orange tree. It was beautiful and well taken care of. He wonders whose idea was it to plant them. There was also a bench in there; maybe he should sit there and rest for a bit.
When he arrives at the garden and hears a woman humming. He wonders if his brother’s hit was strong enough to make him see the ghosts of the keep.
He rounds the corner, and he sees a Lady sitting on the bench. He doesn't recognise her. She’s quite pretty. Her expression was calm and serene. In her hands was a handkerchief with peeled orange slices. The moon shone on her beautifully. He tried to look for clues of her house with her clothes, but she wore a plain white nightgown and a dark robe.
Why is there Lady alone in the gardens in the middle of the night? He wondered.
Should he join her? Or should he let her be in her own peace?
Before he could decide, a wave of nausea hit him, making his body brush against the leaves of the bushes.
The lady stopped humming.
...
"Who's there?!” You shouted when you heard something rustling in the bushes and the sound of a man groaning. “Show yourself before I scream for the guards!”
You get up from the bench and try to see between the gaps who this person is.
You hear a cane tapping against the stone floor path, and a person clad in a dark robe appears. Your heart skips a beat when you see Baelor coming out.
“Forgive me, my lady.” He starts. “It was never my intention to frighten you.”
“Bae… your grace.” You collect yourself and bow before him. “I’m happy to see you recovering well. Are you here by yourself?”
“Yes. I appreciate everyone has made sure I'm comfortable, but I needed time for myself.”
You look down at the orange peels in your handkerchief because you fear if you look at him, you’ll say something you shouldn’t. “Then I’ll let you be, my prince.”
You turn around, but he speaks. “Wait.” You look over your shoulder.
“Please don't let my presence disturb you, and I hope it’s not too much to ask; could you join me? "
How long have you waited for his invitation? It made you feel like the first months you knew one another when you didn't know how to act around him.
You nodded and sat on the bench again. He joins you soon after, groaning as he plops down the hard bench. Maybe you should ask a servant to bring a cushion for him.
You remained silent and so did he.
The silence did not feel tense. It felt familiar. Like the days you got to know each other, where you used each other's presence and didn't need words to pass time. You simply relished being together.
“The song you were humming.” Baelor said, gently breaking the silence. “I recognised it. A High Valyrian song about a daughter asking her father to collect a star for her; he tells her he’ll ride his dragon as high as he can and collect all of them for her. And when he does, the daughter gets sad because the sky is no longer shining, so the father puts her in his dragon, and they put the stars back in the sky.”
“Yes.” You confirm. "Unfortunately I don't know how to sing the words; I just know the rhythm.”
“Where did you hear it from?”
The truthful answer would be. ‘You sang to our daughter ever since she was in my womb. You were so sure it was girl just by the way she kicked against your hand.’
“I heard it from a volantis singer that was passing by.” You said. “It’s my daughter’s favourite song. I hummed it to her when putting her in her cradle."
The more truthful answer would be. ‘She doesn't like it when anyone else but you sings it. She once placed her hand in the King’s mouth to shut him up.’
“How old is your daughter?”
“A year old.”
“What’s her name?”
“Hyacinth.”
Baelor looked around the garden at the various hyacinths surrounding you and him and chuckled.
“A beautiful name.”
You named her, you thought bitterly. “Thank you.”
Baelor shocked his head. “Forgive me, my lady. I just realised I haven't asked your name.”
You answer him.
“Does your husband know you’re here alone?”
“I don't have a husband.” You say it almost bitterly.
It might as well be the truth. Your husband is sitting right next to you like a stranger.
Baelor noticed the tension in your body. “The hour is getting quite late, my lady.” He gets up from the bench and extends his hand towards you. “Allow me to escort you to your chambers.”
You accept his hand and you feel your whole body shivering when you feel Baelor’s skin. “Thank you, your grace.” You reluctantly pull your hand away. “But I have to refuse; my chambers are from yours, and I don't wish for you to exhaust yourself.”
“It would be no trouble.” He tried to argue.
“Please, my prince," You pleaded, exhausted yourself. “I wish to be alone.”
He nodded and stepped aside.
“I would like to thank you, my lady.” You looked at him confused. “It felt nice to have a conversation with someone that didn't involve my injury or matters of the realm.”
“You’re welcome, my prine.”
You bowed and left the garden, and you could feel Baelor’s eyes on you as he watched you disappear from his view. You put your hand in your belly as you feel a small flutter. As if a feather were caressing your skin.
When you were far away from him, the guards, or any living soul, you stopped and collapsed to your knees and started crying.
You tried to be strong. For your daughter. For your baby. But when Baelor gazed at you and the warmth and love weren't there, it was painful and heartbreaking. You felt like you were a little girl again being told to pack her things because she was leaving. Because she’s not wanted. You thought you would never feel like that. That Baelor would not let you feel like that ever again. He promised! you know it’s not his fault. That your Baelor would rather forfeit his crown than let you or Hyacith feel like that. A burden.
...
Baelor can’t help but feel like something is missing. Not just his memories but also someone.
At first he thought it was Jena he was missing. It wasn't a love match, but they had respect for one another, and he felt genuinely sad to hear of her death. She was not only his sons’ mother. She was his friend and someone he felt he could rely on when his time came to be King.
When he woke up, his hand, without thinking, went to his side of the bed, expecting to feel another body. He and Jena slept in separate chambers. When he looks to his side, he expects someone to be there, but there’s only an empty space.
He also hears the sound of a babe crying. When he’s in his study, he swears he hears a child crying. He would step into the corridor, but he would see nothing. He asked the guards if they heard a child, and they told him ‘no’. Baelor thinks he’s losing his mind. When he finds a small doll in his drawer and he smells the faint scent of baby powder, he knows that this child is real.
...
Baelor is on another nightly stroll when he hears once again the sound of a child crying, and this time he knows he’s not imagining it when he hears another voice speaking to the babe.
He follows the sound, and he’s surprised to find himself in the royal nursery where he and his brothers spent the first years of their lives. This section is reserved only for the children of the royal family.
He looks through the gap of the door and sees a small child, a girl, sitting on top of a rug surrounded by pillows. The child was crying almost hysterically. A young nursemaid stood next to her holding a bowl of porridge. She tried to give the baby a spoonful, but the baby turned her head stubbornly and continued to wail. The young nursemaid looked worried sick for the child in her care.
“Should we call the maester?”
An older nursemaid sighed. Baelor recognised she's the same one who took care of his sons. “Don't bother. She'll cry herself to exhaustion very soon.”
The Young nurse maid put the bowl down. “I feel so horrible for her.” The nursemaid wipes a tear from her. “Poor little Hyacinth."
Hyacinth?
The daughter of the lady in the garden.
“Poor little Hyacinth, indeed.” The older nursemaid repeated. “I recognise that cry. I have taken care of children for almost twenty years and recognised the meaning of every cry they let out. This one is ‘I miss my father’ cry.”
Hyacinth sniffed, agreeing with the nurse maid's conclusion. The girl turned her head and made direct eye contact with Baelor.
Hyacinth stops crying and her body goes stiff. Then she let out a happy shriek. The girl got up and walked towards him. Baelor took a step inside the nursery just as she collided against his leg.
“Your grace!” The nurse maids quickly bowed.
Baelor was more focused on the child in front, who clung to his trousers like it was a lifeline.
He crouched down and picked her up. He hoped his body would not betray him, not while he was holding something so frail.
“Hyacinth.” He called her softly.
Hyacinth smiled, revealing two teeth on her upper gums, and buried her face in his neck.
Baelor was shocked that the child who was crying hysterically a while ago had calmed down as soon as she saw him.
“Whose child does she belong to?”
One of the nurse maids stammered the name of the lady in the garden, just like he suspected, but there's no mention of a father.
He was about to ask about him when the child pulled her face away from him and pointed at the bowl of porridge while babbling.
The nursemaid that tried to feed her let out a relieved sigh and quickly picked the bowl. She put the spoon in front of her mouth, but to the dismay of everyone in the room, she turned her face away.
“May I?” Baelor asks, lifting his hand.
The nursemaid passed him the spoon, and he put it in front of the child's mouth. The baby girl chased the spoon and ate the porridge. She opened her mouth wanting more. Baelor scooped another bit of the porridge and repeated the process.
Baelor hummed at her.
“Can I… can I have a moment alone with her?”
“Of course, we'll be in the room right next to you.”
The nursemaids left, and it was just him and her.
Baelor sat himself and Hyacinth on the rug and continued to feed her. She happily took every spoon without hesitation. Once in a while she would stop and smile at him. And Baelor couldn’t help but smile back at her.
When there's nothing left, he gets out his handkerchief and wipes the remaining porridge stuck to her mouth. The handkerchief has hyacinths embroidered on it. He found it inside his pockets when departing Ashford.
He takes a closer look at the child.
He couldn't help but think she looked familiar.
She has mismatched eyes like him and Valarr. Her hair was jet black, curled in a way that reminded him of his mother's hair.
Hyacinth got up and walked to him. She placed her hands on his shoulder and looked at him expectantly.
“What is it that you want, little lady?”
She huffed.
Then Baelor remembered what the lady in the garden said about her daughter.
He started singing quietly.
Hyacinth relaxed and laid her head on his shoulder. Baelor put his hand on her back and laid her on his lap. She was so small. He continued to sing. He liked this song. When he was a tiny lad, the maesters would give him and his brothers songs to translate. This one became his favourite. He liked the story behind it, the love a father had for his child that he flew higher and picked all the stars in the sky for his daughter.
Hyacinth was sleeping peacefully.
Baelor carefully laid her in the cot and looked at her, not knowing how to feel. His mind was reaching an horrendous conclusion.
...
“And he stayed?”
“For a bit, my lady.” The nurse maid explained. “After he tucked her in and called us back inside, he left but not before telling us to call for him if little Hyacinth needed a Prince to feed her porridge again.”
The nursemaids laughed, and you laughed as well. You could cry from happiness.
You looked at your daughter, who was in your arms munching on her doll. She looked well rested and happy.
“And you took your first steps, my little princess?” You laughed. “Of course the first person you would walk to was your papa.”
You brought her closer to you. You could smell Baelor on her. The familiar scents of ink and parchment.
“My cheeky little girl. Maybe it's you who is going to bring him back to us.”
...
Baelor paced back in and forward in his study.
A headache was going through his head worse than the others.
He did not know how to feel. Anger? Disappointment? Disgust? All of it?
Why did he do it?
How could've he done it?
Where did he fail?
Baelor thought Valarr better than this!
He was a small child when the Blackfyre
Valarr was a young child when the Blackfyre Rebellion happened but old enough to remember the reason for why his father was fighting.
So, why did he sire a bastard?
And why are you here walking around the castle like you belong to House Targaryen?
Baelor understands Valarr’s need for wanting his daughter nearby, but his mistress?
Has he gone mad?
Why would he do this to his wife?
Does he go to her chambers in the middle of the night and sneak into her bed?
Baelor takes a deep breath and asks the guard to get his son.
Tags: men being idiots, misogynistic conversations, past abuse.
Part I Part III
You dared to hope after learning of Hyacinth's and Baelor's encounter for the first time in months. You've also been grinning nonstop.
The nursemaids told you that Baelor held Hyacinth like he had done it a million times before, gently holding her against his chest while humming her favourite lullaby and carefully placing her in the cot as if she were the frailest thing in the Realm. For you, it was your husband and Hyacinth's father rather than the Prince of the Realm.
You stand in front of your mirror in your room wearing your flimsy nightgown. A bump is beginning to appear as you enter your third month. You can feel your baby moving at night, and when you turn to face the other side of the bed and see it empty, you feel depressed all over again.
Baelor should be here to feel his child move in the same way as the previous ones. He should be here, speaking to your bump in a language you don't understand, picking names, and telling you how beautiful and radiant you have become while carrying his child.
You, the maester, and Maekar are the only ones who know about this child hidden beneath your heart, and you feel like you're going to burst if you keep this secret any longer.
"Do you feel safe in there, little one?" You spoke softly to your bump. "You have arrived at a very unfortunate time with what has happened to your father, but don't worry... everything will be all right in the end. If your father can cuddle your sister without remembering her, he will adore you. I have no doubt about it."
The next morning, Kiera rushed to your chambers. She told you that Baelor summoned Valarr and Maekar to the council chambers to discuss Hyacinth. You hurriedly dressed and dashed to the council room.
...
Baelor took a deep breath as he walked into the council room.
In the chambers it was him, Valarr and Maekar. Baelor needs his brother in these moments and to stop him from doing or saying something stupid.
“Brother.”
“Father.”
Valarr and Maekar said as he entered.
“Apologies for keeping you both waiting.” Baelor sat down on the chair. “I need to work out what I wished to say… especially to you, Valarr.”
Valarr raised a brow and looked at him expectantly.
“I know, Valarr…” He starts saying the words slowly. “About her.”
“Her?” Valarr asked.
“Hyacinth. I know who she is.”
Valarr’s posture eased, while Maekar’s became tensed.
“You know about the girl?” Maekar asked.
“Yes, I saw her in the nursery two nights ago. Beautiful child.”
“She is," Valarr agreed.
“I also met her mother previously."
Baelor said the name of the lady in the garden. Maekar looked down, his face blank and hard to read. Valarr looked relieved and happy. Perhaps the boy was content that he did not need to make their existence a secret anymore to his father.
“I understand why you have hidden them from me…”
“I didn't want that father.” Valarr interrupted. “I wanted to tell you about them so as not to cause more confusion and more suffering, but they told me it could cause you distress, and in your mind mother was still alive...”
“I appreciate the care you have for my health, son.” Baelor interrupted this time. “But I still find myself… disappointed.”
Maekar and Valarr shared a look.
Makear cleared his throat. “Brother, if I were in your position, I would be upset as well… to hide such an important thing from me… something that regards my children.”
“I know, brother," Baelor said. “It’s not every day your son forgets your teaching and his vows.”
Baelor looked at his son with eyes full of disappointment.
"What is the need for drama, brother?” Maekar scoffed. “Lay off the boy; we all hid it from you. What vows were broken?
“The vows he made to Lady Kiera in front of the Gods and men.”
“Father, I don’t understand what you are…”
“Your daughter and mistress," Baelor simplified.
Valarr looked at him with abject horror. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
“While I understand why your daughter is here, what I don’t understand is why your mistress must be here.” Baelor started. “It is a shame to your wife, to your King, to your house, to me! I don’t know what decision I made years ago when all of these came out, but Hyacinth’s mother remaining not to is not the wisest. We should find her a husband and sent her…”
Baelor couldn't finish his sentence because he felt a sharp pain at the back of his head where his wound sat. It was so painful he couldn't breathe for a second. He gasped as he cradled the back of his head and noticed a shadow over him. He looked up and saw his brother standing over him glowering at him.
“Brother…” Baelor said, astonished at the realisation Maekar slapped him in the back of the head.
His brother, who has not left his side since they left Ashford. His brother, who would scold the maesters when Baelor hissed from the pain because of their harsh touches, has just hit him in the head, right on top of his healing wound.
“I didn't hit you that hard for you to become this stupid, Baelor!” Maekar shouted.
Baelor stood up from his chair. “Do pray tell me, brother, how have I become stupid?"
“You have got it all wrong," Maekar hissed.
Valarr finally regained his voice, and in a broken whisper he said, "Hyacinth is not my daughter, and the lady is not my mistress. She’s my dearest friend.”
Baelor frowned. If Hyacinth is not Valarr’s daughter, why is that child the spitting image of Valarr and Matarys when they were that age? Why does she look like his mother?
“Then who is she?” Baelor asked.
If this is a horrible misunderstanding, he accepts it. He has accused his son of a sin he did not commit, and he accused an innocent woman of being something she is not. He’ll work hard to earn his son’s forgiveness.
“Hyacinth is my sister," Valarr answered.
Baelor’s eyes went wide, and he gripped his chair as his balance threatened to crumble.
“And the woman is your wife," Maekar continued. “I’ll admit I never liked her, and you almost hacked at me when I disrespected her, but she is your wife.”
Baelor looked between Maekar and Valarr as another headache was erupting inside his cranium.
“I don't believe you.”
Maekar scoffed once again. “Brother, if you go down to flea bottom right now and ask any toothless illiterate rat down there who the hand’s wife is, it is not Jena’s name they’re going to say but hers.”
Baelor hid his face against his hands and groaned. Suddenly, he felt something in him that he hasn’t felt in years and that took years of discipline to control it. He felt anger. “Why was this kept away from?!”
He has a wife and a daughter, and no one told him! Where were they hiding while they walked him around the Red Keep?
He remembered Hyacinth’s red face and her anguished wails. How she refused to eat because she missed her father. She missed Baelor. How long has his child been starving herself because he was not with her? How long has she been crying herself to sleep because she did not have his lullabies to put her to sleep?
And his wife?
She told him she had no husband. Did she say that because he did not recall her? Is that why she looked so sad that night? Because he did not remember her? Because he was not with her? Seven, forgive him!
What utter nonsense just came out of his mouth!
"Where are they?!”
He did not wait for any of them to answer because he was walking to the door. He abruptly opened it and almost collided with two people. He took a step back and looked at the two people, thinking they were guards or maybe two maids who were gathering gossip, but it was not that, and Baelor felt his heart sink into the floor.
It was Lady Kiera and his wife.
Lady Kiera looked at him in horror and disgust as she held on to his wife. His wife didn't look at him. He could only see her side profile. Her shoulders trembled and tears were running down her. Tears that he caused.
“My lady…” Baelor tried to reach her.
The lady jumped back away from him and sobbed. “No! No! No! Get away from me! Get away from my daughter, you monster!”
She released herself from Kiera’s grip and walked away. Kiera followed after her. Valarr came out, looked at his father with the same disappointment Baelor had looked at him with previously, and rushed after the two women.
“You goddamn idiot.” Maekar said from inside the chamber.
Her cries echoed in the hallways.
...
What you thought was the end of a nightmare turned out to be the start for a new one.
You did not hide your tears and your sobs.
You held them back when you were sent away to another keep where they would reject you once again. You held them back when they would whisper behind your back that you were a whore that spread her legs to the Prince. You held them back when those same people looked at her with pity and prayed for a swift recovery for the prince.
They now have another reason to laugh at you.
Baelor Targaryen would rather believe that his son has forsaken his vows and sired a bastard than see you as his wife. He thought of you as the others think of you: a whore who spread her legs to garner Targaryen favour. A stain on the royal family’s reputation. He thought of Hyacinth as a bastard and not a member of his family. His first thought was to send you away. Away from…
“He wants to take her from me!” You sobbed into your pillow.
When they told you you had leave, you did with a defeated sigh because you had nothing and no one. Even if you didn't have your Baelor, you still had your Hyacinth. She was the last thing you had left.
What would Baelor do if he knew of the baby inside you? Would he tell the maester to take the infant away as soon as you had given birth? You put your hand against your belly as if they could rip your child apart from you any minute now.
"No," Valar said softly, rubbing your back. “The King is not going to let it happen. I’m not going to let it happen. I swear to you.”
Oh, Valarr! Sweet and soft Valarr, who was one of the first to welcome you when you married his father. How could Baelor think that his son would hurt his wife like that?
You hated him! You hated Baelor! You want him away from you!
You took a deep breath and sat on your bed. Kiera whipped away your tears gently.
The maids come and go inside your chambers, all of them looking at you with pity. Sooner or later the whole Keep will learn that Baelor Targaryen thinks his wife is a mistress and the princess a bastard.
You could no longer stay here.
“Valarr…” You called for your stepson with a hoarse voice. “Can you please get me a meeting with the King? I need to speak with him urgently.”
...
For the first time in his life, Baelor was lost.
This is something he cannot fix with diplomacy.
He has accused his wife of something she was not.
He has hurt her tremendously.
He has called his own child a bastard when she was made from a lawful union.
He tried to remember them.
He tried to make his mind remember his wife and daughter.
Does he even have the right to call them? After he disowned them so quickly.
Baelor looked over the letters between him and his wife. All the correspondence was hidden from him before returning to the capital. Maekar gave it to him. His brother looked regretful, a rare sight. He tells Baelor they all hid because they didn't want to make his condition worse. Baelor preferred to have had his health go worse than to do what he just did. He looked at the last letter he sent his wife before the trial happened. He promised to return to her. Her faithful husband returned to her as a cruel man.
He organised his letter from oldest to newest. He read them throughout the whole night. His wife had beautiful handwriting, and she explained things perfectly. She talks of their daughter and how her health is faring and what milestones she has reached. She speaks of his sons with the warmth of a mother. She speaks of household management like a seasoned lord.
When reading his own handwriting, Baelor can barely recognise himself. These are words that he would certainly use, but what he doesn't recognise is their content.
He sounds like a man madly in love. Every word is about his yearning for his wife, thinking of his wife and wishing to be beside her all the time. There were letters in which he wrote things he would never think he would write. Sentences that would even make the madames of the silk street blush.
He reads the letter that was written around the time Hyacinth was born. He writes about his daughter with so much love. He writes about his worry regarding his wife’s recovery. He never thought of having another wife. He never thought of having children again. Valarr and Matarys had been enough.
The sun lightens his study. It’s morning already.
Baelor decides to go to the nursery.
...
As Baelor walks to the nursery, he realises now why hyacinths have become such an important symbol in his life. He understands now why he had that handkerchief embroidered with the flower. He understands now why every time he goes to his study there’s a fresh pot of them in his study every day. He understands now why there’s a whole section of the garden full of them.
It was his wife’s house sigil.
There was not much about his wife’s house that he could find in the lineage books. The only notable members were a knight that various tournaments and she, a future queen. Naming a royal Princess after the sigil of her house was the closest thing his wife could do to honour her house.
Baelor was about to enter the nursery when the guard stationed next to the door stepped in front of him. He was surprised but quickly recovered.
“Ser Hobart, please step aside.” He ordered with a firm tone.
“I cannot, your grace.” The guard stated. “I have express orders to not let you in.”
Baelor sighed.
He cannot blame her for doing that, but he just needs to see the baby for one minute.
“Ser, I urge you to step aside," Baelor ordered again. “I respect you for complying with my wife’s wishes, but I will not be barred from seeing Princess Hyacinth.”
“It was not your wife who gave the order, my lord hand.”
Before Baelor could ask who gave the order, the door opened, and a new and even firmer voice joined the conversation.
“So our Lord Hand finally remembers his wife and child! Such a shame it happened after he made a complete fool of himself, accused his son of something he didn’t do and humiliated his wife.”
Baelor bowed his head. “Father.” He tried to peek inside the nursery, and he could see Hyacinth sitting on the rugs playing with her mother. The door closed just as Hyacinth looked over her shoulder and smiled when she saw him. He could hear her babbling from behind the door.
“Don’t call me that right now. I’m cross with you!”
The king walked ahead. Baelor looked between him and the door of the nursery. Hyacinth was starting to sob. Baelor decided to follow the King.
“Your grace.” Baelor started as he reached his side. “What I have said was utter nonsense! A conclusion that I have shouldve thought of better…”
The King raised his hand, and Baelor stopped talking. He waited for the King to speak, but he remained silent as they walked through the corridors. They entered the garden where Baelor had met his wife for ‘the first time'.
The King stopped in front of a purple hyacinth. He gently caressed the petals.
“For years the council and I tried to find you a wife after Jena’s death.” The King started. “We brought forward every Lady of the Realm suitable for a Prince and you rejected every one of them. ‘I have two healthy sons, my king,' you said. ‘I have no need for another wife.’ That was the end of the discussion.”
The King sat on the bench. Baelor stayed still, listening to his father.
“Years pass and suddenly you are… distracted. You arrived late to meetings, and even when you arrived early, you always seemed unfocused. Every time I asked what was on your mind, you always told me it was nothing.” The King chuckled. “Nothing turned out to be a lady with no parents, an unremarkable house and barely a coin in her name. And you came to me asking my blessing to wed her. I thought you had gone mad!”
Baelor twirled the ring on his finger.
“I said no. It was too risky, and the Lords would never approve a low-born lady as their queen. But you fought me… Gods, you fought me. There’s a reason why your brothers always sent you first to negotiate for something as simple as getting a kitten. I objected to it. You fought it. I objected again. You fought me again. I relented and gave you my blessing. You came back a fortnight later with a bride who could barely look me in the eye. You have your mother’s Dornish stubbornness. Thank the gods she’s not alive to see these.”
Baelor lowered his head in shame.
“All though… I wished she were alive to see you after you wedded her.” The King, his tone now sombre. “You smiled more. You weren't always locked in your study. You looked at ease. When Hyacinth was born, this place finally felt like a home once again.”
The King pauses as he thinks of his next words.
“I was a young man when my own father started to cast doubts about my parentage. Hyacinth is oblivious, but she’ll grow up and she’ll hear them. Even though there’s no doubt in who her father is. There are still going to be those fools who’ll believe otherwise.”
Baelor closes his eyes. Shames runs through his body. He remembers his grandfather’s horrendous remarks towards his father. He remembers how his father always kept his head high. His grandfather was a cruel man, and he has just become like him.
“Father… Your grace…” Baelor breathed out and dropped to his knees. “Please forgive me for my foolish words and assumptions. It was never my intention to hurt any of you.”
“Stand up, son.” The King said. “It is not my forgiveness you should ask for. It’s your wife's, and I don’t think you are going to get it sooner.”
“I will still fight for it nonetheless!”
“Go ahead but be patient.” The King advised. “If she doesn’t want you near her… If she doesn't want you near the child, respect that, even if that hurts your soul.”
“Of course,” Baelor accepted. “Thank you, your grace.” He bowed his head and turned to leave.
"Baelor," The King called. “There’s another thing.”
Baelor looked at his father.
“She’s with child and she wishes to take sanctuary in Dragonstone.”
It felt like an invisible mace struck Baelor all over again.
...
You looked all over your belongings.
Years ago it was just two ugly gowns and a pair of shoes.
Now it was various gowns of various colours and fabrics, a multitude of shoes and jewellery that could feed a poor family for a year or two. Of course you are not going to bring everything to Dragonstone, only the essentials. You already packed Hyacinth’s belongings, and the boat was waiting for you two.
A maid comes in with her eyes uncertain just as you are folding a gown. “My lady.” She mumbled. “The Lord Hand is outside requesting your permission to come in.”
Your hands stilled.
Honestly, you felt like a coward running away from the capital, but for the first time in your life, you had control over where you wanted to go.
“Let him in and prepare Hyacinth," You said. “Girls, leave. I need to speak with the hand.”
Your back was turned as you continued folding your gowns. All the maids left, and he comes in but doesn't say anything. You both remained quiet as you continued to fold your gowns, but this quiet soon became too stifling. Out of frustration you threw a gown to the floor.
You turned around and looked at him.
He looked at you with a blank expression.
He hasn't said anything yet. He was letting you have the first word, so you broke the silence.
“You were the first and only.”
Baelor looked at you confused. “Pardon me, my lady.”
“I was a virgin when I came to the capital and remained so until my wedding night… our wedding night.” You explained.
“My lady…” He started.
You laugh cruelly. “I didn’t even want to marry you! I was just happy that I had someone looking at me. I was just happy someone like you found me interesting that you wanted my company. I wasn't looking for a husband. I would’ve lived happily just being your friend.”
Baelor looked at you almost heartbroken, but you did not care. He broke you first.
“I didn’t marry because I wanted to be Queen or have all the riches of the world. I married you because you promised me you would never leave my side. Because you said you love me. Because I lo…” Your voice broke. “Because I loved you, and I love you still even after you said those horrendous things.”
You turned around, not wanting to cry in front of him. You are so sick of crying. He did not say anything. You were wiping away a tear when you heard a rushing movement behind you and something dropping to the floor. Before you could see what fell, hands grip your waist and turn you around. A face wedged deep into your stomach.
Baelor sobbed your name
“Please! Please forgive me!” His tears soaked your dress. “I am a foolish man! A stupid man, but I’ll be better! I’ll be your husband! I’ll be Hyancinth’s father! I’ll love you again!”
You stare at him shocked. You never once saw Baelor cry. He was a steel wall that would never break. Now. In front of you he was crumbling like a sand castle. You became the steel wall in an instant.
“Your grace, get up… You are embarrassing yourself.” You calmly said.
Baelor doesn’t get up. His grips get tighter. You grabbed his shoulders and pulled him up. He got up but did not pull away. His hands remained on your waist. He’s taller than you, but he’s hunched over in a way that makes sure he doesn't tower over you. He laid his forehead against yours. His beautiful mismatched eyes were red-rimmed as he stared at you.
“I have to leave," You whispered. “The ship is waiting. I have to get Hyacinth.”
Baelor shook his head. “No.”
“I just want space...” You whispered, tears running down your cheeks. Baelor lifts his hand and places it on your cheek. Your body trembles as he gently wipes away a tear. You take a deep breath. “You don’t understand now… but for the first time in my life I’m choosing where to go.”
Baelor moved the hand that was on your waist to your belly, to your bump. He touched it the same way when you carried Hyacinth. You chuckle a bit; the King must have told him.
He opens his mouth and you expect him to plead once again for you to remain. “Write to me.”
You blinked at him.
“They don’t need to be long letters… I just need to know you are alright… that she’s alright… our baby is alright…”
“I will.” You promised.
He sighed in relief.
“Please forgive me, my love.” He said it one more time.
You closed your eyes. Your hands that have stayed on his shoulders move. They carefully go to the back of his head and lay on his wound. That goddamn wound that turned your world upside down. You lift your head, gently nudging your nose against his. You pressed your body closer to his and placed your lips against his. His body shuddered but he kissed you back nonetheless. You could taste your tears in the kiss.
The kiss started gently, but it soon grew into that roughness you recognised. Baelor pulled you even closer to him. You let yourself get lost in the kiss. You could pretend that everything was normal, just for today, but it has to come to an end.
You are the first to pull away. Baelor tried to chase your lips, but you grabbed his face and pulled him away.
“Let me go first."
And he let you go.
...
A/N: Oh Baelor, Baelor, Baelor... You fucked up big time, buddy!
Tags: Bleeding while pregnant, mentions of childbirth.
Part I Part II
...
Hyacinth's steps, which started wobbly and needed the furniture for assistance just to get up, started to become confident. You walked the beaches of Dragonstone holding her tiny hand so tightly because you knew if you let go, the waves would not return her. Her babbling was inching closer to words. You know they are on the tip of her tongue, waiting to be said.
Your belly swells as the baby inside you grows. The Maester and the midwife tell you everything is going well as it should. The butterfly in your stomach that you previously felt turned into sharp kicks that sometimes kept you up at night. The nausea went away, and you had this urge to eat meat that’s well cooked but still bloody.
You write all of these changes to Baelor. Your letters to him barely have that warmth or affection, and they mostly feel cold, but he still responds to you with gentleness and tenderness.
Baelor writes to you asking about Hyancith. Your and the baby’s well-being. He and Valarr are getting back to good terms. Maekar, of all people, is asking about you. How his wound is completely healed, but he still has debilitating headaches and how some of his memories past Jena’s death are returning. You wished to be next to him, clarifying things to him.
All of his letters to you end with, “Waiting for your call, your husband Baelor.”
You wonder if you are being petty by remaining in Dragonstone. He will only come to you if you tell him to, but your stubborn mind tells you to remain put.
Hyacinth misses her father.
The baby doesn’t know what their father’s voice sounds like.
You miss your husband.
Your hand is forced when you wake up one morning with crampings and blood staining your linens. When they gave you milk of the poppy, in your dazed mind you called for Baelor. You called for your husband.
…
The letter that arrived from Dragonstone, written by the maester instead of his wife, made Baelor feel something he hadn't felt in a long while: panic.
The maester informs him that his wife woke up one morning severely bleeding. They managed to stop the bleeding, and mother and child were alright and resting. Before slumping into unconsciousness, his wife asked for him.
His wife called for him.
He shall go to her.
He doesn't inform the king, the small council or even his brother of what just happened or that he’s sailing to Dragonstone. He rushes to the harbour with a bag of gold and tells a captain he’ll give it to him if he takes him to Dragonsotne as quickly as possible. Storms or windless skies be damned!
The moment his feet land on the island, he ignores the guard that greets him and asks one simple but important question.
“Where’s my wife?”
…
The sound of your daughter gurgling wakes you up. You don’t open your eyes immediately. Your body was still under the effects of the milk of the poppy. You laid still and listen in. A nursemaid must have brought her in to make her feel at ease having you in her eyesight.
It was just a scare.
You didn't lose a lot of blood. The baby moves to prove they’re still living. The maester believes it must have been the stress that caused it and ordered you to remain in bed until the birth, which was just two moons away.
Hyacinth gurgles.
You were about to fall asleep when you heard another noise. Another voice. It was not from a nursemaid. It was from a man. It was Baelor’s voice.
With a lot of struggle you opened your eyes. Baelor was standing near the window with Hyacinth in his arms. She was resting her body against his chest and tugging on his beard. His face was soft and he was rubbing her back. It was a sight you were familiar with.
You whispered his name so low you were not sure he even heard it over Hyancith’s babbling, but he did.
He looked in your direction, and he let out a relieved sigh. “Look! Mama’s awake!”
He walked to your bed and sat Hyacinth next to you. She crawled to you, planting herself on your chest and snuggling her face against your neck. You hugged your daughter back and kissed her head.
“Hello, my love.” You whispered.
You looked at Baelor. You wonder why he’s here. Then you remembered. You called for him. You didn’t think they actually would do it. You thought they wouldn’t understand your pleas. Your eyes tear up as you look at him.
“You came.”
“You called."
…
You are shocked when Baelor tells you he dropped everything and rushed to the island without telling the king or the small council. You assumed Baelor would’ve made plans and spoke to the council before boarding a ship.
Maybe you shouldn't be surprised; this is the same man who entered a trial by combat wearing armour that did not belong to him and did not fit him.
This impulsive act made by your husband made you feel warm inside and in places where you hadn't felt warm in months.
He settles quickly with you and Hyacinth.
He joins you and Hyacinth when you break fast in your bedchamber. He plays with her throughout the day.
He apologised once more about the cruel words he said. You keep a distance from him. Although you are the one that called for him, being around him made you nervous. You make small talk. You answered his questions. but you made yourself small and scarce in his presence.
He fulfilled his promise of being a father to Hyacinth. It was easy; she doesn't know the havoc her family is going through. He does his husbandly duties by making sure you’re comfortable and in good health. But for this part there’s still a long way to go forward before you fully forgive and welcome him to your presence, arms and bed.
“Father wishes good health to you and the baby.” He told you one morning when breaking fast. Hyacinth is in her high chair eating her porridge with her bare hands. Good thing her nightclothes are only changed afterwards.
He was holding scrolls that arrived from the capital after Baelor sent a raven, making them aware of where he was. “Although he wishes I had sent a warning first before making Maekar send the entire Kingsguard to search every nook and cranny of the capital.”
“That’s lovely," You said, sipping your tea. "And what does the one sent by your brother say?”
Baelor stares at his brother’s scroll with amusement. "There are a few words in here that are best not to say out loud. We have innocent ears in our presence.” He quickly glances at Hyacinth.
“He’s mainly crossed with the fact that I left without warning. Says that I’m worse as Aegon when it comes to disappearing without consulting him.”
You chuckled, remembering that as soon as Ser Duncan went away, everybody noticed the absence of the young prince.
“He also says he wishes good recovery for you and the baby.”
You smiled. “He may not like me, but when I carried Hyacinth all of a sudden, he became curious about how I was doing. He once sent clothes that once belonged to the girls. Said a Taragryen Princess shouldn’t look… ghastly."
“Yes, Daella’s clothes.” Baelor said
He blinked and you blinked too.
He cleared his throat. “Sometimes they come and go when I least expect.” He looked at you expectantly. “I’m correct, am I?”
“Yes, yes, you are. It was Daella’s clothes.” You confirmed. “What else do you remember from that time?”
Baelor titled his head and hummed. “I remember… oranges.”
“Oranges?”
“I remember mostly the smell of oranges.”
“In the first months of the pregnancy I had this huge craving for oranges.” You explained. “It was the only thing I could eat without throwing up.”
“My mother adored oranges.” He mused. “My father planted them when she mentioned one time how much she missed them.”
Baelor looked at Hyacinth with a found look. You knew about that. The King told you when he saw you pick an orange from the tree. Hyacinth looked like Baelor, and Baelor looked like his mother. So you wonder if Baelor is seeing his mother in Hyacinth. When the King held her for the first time, you could swear a tear left his eye when he said Hyacinth looked just like the late Queen Myriah Martell.
“If it’s not…” He started but then stopped. It surprises you to see a confident man like Baelor hesitate.
“Yes?” You encouraged him.
“If it’s not too strenuous for you, I would like the chance to take a stroll on the beach with you after finishing the fast.”
“I would love to! The Maester tells me a short walk can do no harm.” You agreed. “We can go as soon as this little one is finished. One of us has to hold her hand or the waves will get her!”
“I was hoping… it could be just the two of us.”
You went still.
You haven’t been in a room alone with him since he arrived in Dragonstone. Someone was always present, whether it be Hyacinth, a servant or the maester. This will be the first time. You thought carefully. You nodded.
…
You leave your daughter in the care of the nursemaids. You and Baelor leave the castle; you hold his hand when you go down the stairs and link arms with him when you start walking down the sandy beaches. You breath in the fresh air.
“Have you thought of a name?” Baelor asked.
Your hand instinctively went to your bump. “I have looked over your family and other Valyrian names, but none of them seemed to fit.”
“When the boys came along, I spent days looking over high valyrian text trying to find that one name that fit them.”
“Only for you to end up name you first born ‘man’” You joked.
He smiled and looked at you curiously. “How did we come up with Hyacinth?”
You hummed. “You thought she was going to be a boy… I don't blame you; you had two sons, and your father had four. When she came out lacking that appendage.” You chuckled. “I’ve never seen you and the King so speechless.”
Baelor blushed. “I love her name.”
“Me too.” You agreed. “The moment you suggested it, I took one look at her, and I knew then and there it was her name.”
He looked at you, surprised.
“What?”
“Forgive me, my lady. I assumed all this time it was you who had chosen her name. A tribute to your House.”
You sighed. “It’s alright. I wasn’t even thinking of my House when you suggested it. It’s so irrelevant that I almost forgot it was my sigil.”
Baelor’s steps started to slow. You stopped walking as well and looked at him. There was this vacant look on his face. As if he were no longer in the present.
“Husband?” You called for him.
He broke the silence, but he mostly talked to himself. “You had nothing... You had no one.”
You looked at him stunned. You knew he wasn't saying those words out of malice but still left you tense. His eyes were wide and staring up ahead. What was his mind making him remember?
“I asked you to marry me in Dragonstone.”
You felt your heartbeat speed up.
He realised his grip on you and walked forward. He halted a few paces ahead of you and stared at a hilltop. He pointed at it with a shaking finger.
“Right on that hill.” He didn’t look at you for confirmation. “You said ‘no’... You just told me to get up… you tried to pull me up… You kept arguing and arguing… You kept saying you came from nothing and that they would never accept you and I…” He laughed with mirth. “I was thinking at the time… Gods, she looks so beautiful when she argues with me! …and I refused to get up until you said yes.”
He made himself quiet again. His back was to you. You remained put; your hand was rubbing your belly to calm down the baby who was kicking hard inside you.
“You only said yes because I promised to never leave you… to never send you away. And I broke that promise!” His voice broke. “I held our daughter in my arms, and my first thought was she must have come from sin!” He spat that last word like it was a rotten fruit. “I was ready to send you away to another stranger, not caring if you would’ve been loved or taken care of…” His body shook. “I was going to take you away from her! Your whole world! Because I thought I was fixing something that was never broken in the first place!”
He sounded horrified. At his own words. His thoughts. His ideas. His choices.
“You are correct, my lady.” He said quietly. “I am a monster.”
Tears ran down your face, and you were sobbing. Your knees buckled. You wanted him to regret all of his words and actions. You wanted him to break down, but seeing it happen right in front of you, you didn't get that cathartic feeling you were expecting.
“Baelor.” You call for him.
He turns around. His eyes were bloodshot red, but he held back his tears.
“Please take me inside.” You cracked. “I don’t feel good.”
Whatever Baelor was feeling, he bottled them up and ran to you. You didn't protest when he picked you up and carried you back to the castle. You were no longer paying attention to your surroundings. You gripped his cloak tightly. You focused only on the sound of his heartbeat and his arms around you.
…
Baelor watched as the Maester examined his wife.
Every time she winced, he tensed.
Every time she groaned, he fought to not leap from the chair.
“Everything is in order with mother and child.” The maester concluded. “Still, her ladyship should remain bedded for a few more weeks. Short walks can still happen and are recommended.” He looked at Baelor with a raised brow. “But no strenuous activities.”
He was about to ask what the Maester meant by 'strenuous activities’ but stopped when the realisation dawned on him. The tips of his ears went red, and he scratched the back of his head.
The Maester left. It was just the two of them, once again. They remained silent until it was broken by her gasp and moving around the bed. Baelor stands up and goes to her side. “My lady, should I call for the Maester again?"
“No. No.” She assured. “They’re kicking a little too hard; that’s it.”
Baelor felt a bit of relief. “Valarr and Matarys were the same. They saw their mother’s womb as a bed to jump on.”
She smiled with amusement. “All of your children are like that. Hyacinth was the same.”
“The boys would quiet down when I talked to them. Was she the same?”
“Yes.”
“Is it alright I try with the little one?” He asked almost hesitantly.
She stared at him quietly and then hummed. “I wish to sleep… go ahead.”
He hoped he didn't look too enthusiastic when he sat down next to her. He has been quietly craving to feel her belly and the child moving. Even when he carried her back inside, he made sure her hands did not touch her stomach. He raised his hand ready to touch it but stopped. He looked at his wife. “Is it alright if I touch you, my lady?”
She didn’t answer him. Instead, she grabbed his hand and placed it on top of her bump. The moment his hand touched the warm and hard skin, he felt a kick. Baelor almost jumped in surprise with the sudden movement. He laughed fondly.
“They’re strong.” He says.
“They are.” She agreed.
He leaned forward and spoke to the bump. “Hello, little one.”
The baby hearing the new voice kicked once again.
Baelor chuckled. “While I do enjoy knowing you are full of energy and strength, you’ll cease using your mother as a training dummy in this instance. She needs to rest, and so do you.”
The baby stopped kicking, but they still moved around.
Baelor continued to talk. “Defiant, aren’t you? You are my fourth child after all. Perhaps you’ll be like your Uncle Maekar.”
“Don’t even!” She said in mock horror.
Baelor laughed. He continued on talking to the child, and when he looked up, he saw his wife fast asleep. He leaned forward and kissed her bump. He looked at her and kissed her forehead, carefully not to wake her up.
When they kissed on the day she left. Baelor felt like he walking into a room he never entered before but as it went on, memories started to flood in. The taste of her mouth, the feeling of her lips on his mouth and skin. He craved those lips from days on. He took in the feeling of her soft skin against his lips and the smell of citrus, sand and the ocean that clung to her skin and hair. This will do for the time being until he gains her trust.
…
She’s screaming.
His wife is screaming.
He is sitting on a hardwood chair while listening to it.
Have they given her milk of the poppy to ease her pains?
It feels like hours have passed since the midwife told her to push.
He gets from the chair and paces the room like a caged dog.
He twists the rings on his fingers.
He rubs his face and hair every few moments.
There was a final scream. So loud. So powerful. Baelor felt a shiver run down his spine.
Then there was silence.
That is soon broken by another scream.
A wail.
Baelor forgets all the decorum, all the rules and all the protocols and bursts into the room. Maids jump at his presence. A midwife is scolding him, telling him he shouldn’t be there. He does not care. The person he was looking for was in a bed shaking, attended by the maids. He ran to it. They dispersed like a flock of pigeons.
He sat beside his wife and scooped her into his arms.
“My love.” He whispered.
She shook against his arms. Her body was drenched in sweat, and the shift clung to her skin. Her hair was moist and stuck to her face. She weakly opened her eyes and then closed them again. “Baelor?” She whispered in a hoarse voice.
“I’m right here.”
He kissed her forehead and cheeks. He praised her strength. He told her she was strong.
“The baby?” She quietly whispered.
A sense of shame filled Baelor as he realised he hadn't asked for his child’s well-being. His mind became only focused on his wife. He looked to the other side of the room. The crying he previously heard turned into soft whimpers. The infant was bundled in a white blanket and carried by a midwife.
The child was placed in his wife’s arms as the midwife said. “A healthy girl, your graces."
His wife held her closer to her chest and cried happy tears.
“Hello! Hello!” She mumbled to her child and kissed her head.
Baelor watched the baby. She was red like a tomato and had dark curly hair like his. His child. His daughter. His baby girl. In awe.
He kissed his wife’s cheek one more time.
“They wanted a boy.” She mumbled after awhile.
Baelor looked at her confused, and then he sighed.
He pulled her closer to him and laid his hand on the squirming bundle.
“Look at me, my love.” He gently commanded.
She looked at him.
“They don’t matter. You made her. She’s ours.” He told her. “Don’t let their silly remarks ruin this for you.”
She sniffed and kissed her daughter’s head one more time. The child had become quiet in her mother’s arms.
“We don't have a name for her.” She said.
Baelor looked at his daughter closely.
With his finger he gently caressed her cheek.
“Hyacinth.”
…
You love your daughter more than anything, but by the Seven, her favouritism frustrates you sometimes.
Of course you know your daughter adores you. She smiles when she sees you, when you call her name and when you speak to her. She cuddles with you in the early hours of the morning. She falls asleep in your arms when you read to her.
But you can’t compete with Baelor.
You ‘believed’ that when you were resting from your labours, Baelor must have called on Shiera Seastar to cast a spell on Hyacinth to make her attached to him.
Her lower lip trembles when he leaves the room for longer than five minutes. She made sure to let you and her nursemaids know she was not happy with his absence.
Tonight was one of those nights. She did not want to go to bed. It took a lot of rocking back and forth and humming lullabies to get her to sleep. When you laid her in her cot, you collapsed from exhaustion on your bed.
You could’ve called him, but this was one of those moments where you didn’t want to rethink your choices. Of leaving King’s Landing and taking her with you. Hyacinth didn't know any better. She doesn't know that the man who held her didn't know who she was for a while and called her a bastard. She doesn’t know her mother is punishing him even though there’s no point in prolonging it.
You toss and turn with a lot of difficulty. Your bump being your main obstacle. You also feel cold and pull the covers around you. You’re about to fall asleep when you suddenly feel warm. As if an even thicker cover were laid on top of your body. You move closer to the source and sigh happily.
Sleep almost gets you until you feel the warmth moving. You frown and wait. A hand is placed on your bump. You don’t panic. You don’t feel fear. There’s only one person in this place who would dare to lay on your bed and touch.
“Baelor.” You whisper into the night.
The hand was about to move away, but you quickly grabbed his wrist.
You slowly turned around and faced him. You put his hand back in your bump.
“Hi.” You said.
“Hi.” He said it almost boyishly. “Did I awake you?”
You shook your head. “I was barely asleep.” You sigh. “Have you always snuck into my bed in the middle of the night? Or is this the first time?”
He smiled at you. “First time.”
“Why now?” You asked.
“I had a dream.” He answered.
You looked at him almost amused.
“My memories started coming back through my dreams.” He explained.
“What did you ‘dream’ of?”
His smile became soft, and he looked over his shoulder where Hyacinth was sleeping peacefully in her cot. “Her birth.”
“Oh.”
“You were so strong.”
“I had too. Have you seen the size of her head?”
He chuckled quietly.
“You were also worried about how the court would react… to her being a girl.”
When the midwife told you the baby was a girl, a wave of panic went through your body. While the court still didn’t accept you as one of them when your pregnancy was announced, it made you more bearable in their eyes. “Giving us a boy is the least she could do after insulting the noble ladies of Westeros.” You heard someone whisper.
You hate that you let those whispers get the best of you. That those whispers made you into a little girl who wanted to make sure everyone liked her.
“I was worried, but you didn’t let it get to me.” You said. “Do you remember her holding her for the first time?”
Once you put her in his arms, he barely let her go. You have seen Baelor’s softness before, but with Hyacinth, he became even softer. He would tenderly kiss her head. He would let her tiny grip his finger. He would ask the nursemaids what she had done throughout the day as if they were matters of the Realm. His gaze would turn into stone when someone who wasn’t a family member or a trusty nursemaid held her.
He brushed a hair strand from your face. “I remember feeling so many emotions.”
You moved closer to him, and he put his arms around you.
“She was a challenge to put to sleep. She put up a fight with me," You said. “I think she was calling for you.”
“Why didn’t you call for me?” He asked, holding no judgement or resentment, just genuine curiosity and worry.
You shrugged and then started to sob, quietly knowing your daughter was a few feet away.
“Hey! Hey!” He calmed you down. “What’s wrong, my love?”
“I didn’t call you because I still don’t know I should trust you. Because I feel small again. That if I blink, I will lose everything.” He looked at you sympathetically. “You have been nothing but kind and respectful ever since you arrived, and I put my feelings above her well-being. She called for you before and after coming to the island. She barely ate because she missed you so much. I took her greatest source of comfort away from her. Maybe I’m a monster as well.”
Baelor pulled you to his arms and rasped into your hair. “My lady, please don’t think of yourself that way ever again. You are scared and hurt mother. I'm a stupid man who didn't use his words wisely.”
You gripped his white shirt and buried your face against his chest.
“I want us to be a family again. I want to go back home.”
Baelor kissed your head. “I will give anything you ask.”
"Promise me?”
“I promise.”
...
Your second daughter was born a fortnight later.
Baelor was with you throughout the process. He held your hand. He rubbed your back. He whispered encouragements in your ear. He let out a sigh of relief when she came out crying.
She came out with a head full of dark hair and strong lungs, very much like her sister.
And very much like her sister, it was her father who named her.
“Hello, Alyssa.” He decided while holding her and kissing her head.
On the first day of Alyssa Targaryen's life, she learnt the feeling of his strong arms holding her, and her father sang her the same lullaby her sister and brothers heard. Her father told her that she had a sister, brothers, an uncle and a grandfather who were anxious to meet her.
The nursemaid brings Hyacinth the following morning. She looks at her new baby sister who is in your arms in silence.
“This is your baby sister, Hyacinth.” You gently explained to her. “Alyssa.”
“Give your sister a kiss, my love.” Baelor softly told her.
Hyacinth kissed Alyssa’s forehead with a wet smack. Alyssa made a fussing sound in protest. Baelor watched the three of you with a tear in his eye.
For a moment everything was silent. Just the sound of your daughters gurgling and cooing. The sound of the wind and waves.
The silence is broken by a sweet and inexperienced voice. “‘lyssa.”
The voice didn't come from either you or Baelor. It came from Hyacinth.
You and Baelor stared at each other in shock.
“What was that, Hyacinth?” Baelor asked her.
Hyacinth pointed at Alysssa. “‘lyssa.” She said again.
You gasped in surprise and started laughing. Baelor laughed as well.
“Yes, that Alyssa.”
…
The road ahead is unpredictable, but Baelor will make sure it is clear enough for his wife and daughters to go through.
He made a promise, and he will be sure to not break it again.
Trials of Seven… His brother’s mace… be damned!
...
A/N: Did I manage to finish a story? I think I did!
Thank you to everybody who subscribed and read this story!
Jack Abbot x Micheal Robinavitch x Autistic!Fem!Reader
summary: Life had a funny sense of humor, especially when it was at your expense. Seemingly taking pride in your torture as you attempt to navigate through the stresses of a busy work day.
One simple mistake lands you in the hospital, where you receive an unexpected invite from your favorite night shift Attending and close friend, Jack Abbot.
story tags: Slight canon divergences to work with the plot, Medical inaccuracies, Italics are reader's internal monologue, Godmother!Dana, Possibly OOC for any character involved, Extremely self indulgent, Unspecified age - but she is younger, Reader has a tattoo - No physical descriptions aside from this, Insecure reader, Self sabotaging/self doubt, Reader dodging social cues like they're bullets, Low support needs autistic!Reader, Mentions of marijuana consumption, Alcohol consumption, Work place stress, Angst, Fluff, Slow burn, Getting together fic, Sexual tension, Swearing
wc: 18.8k
a/n: Y'ello Pitt fanom, this is my first fic for this fandom EVER. So please be kind. I just started watching the show not too long ago. All I have to say is that I'm absolutely obsessed with Robby and Jack and their ship. So I wanted to throw my hat in the ring.
This particular topic is very sensitive to me so hopefully it turned out as well as I hoped! This story is based off of my personal experiences, I can't speak for every autistic person in the world, but hopefully this story will help some others feel seen. I mostly wrote this for myself but I did want to share
also, another thing. This is quite literally the longest one shot I have ever written in my life. stayed up until 5 and 7 am writing this for 3 days.
The playlist itself is based off both vibes AND somewhat targeted towards the story itself. Take the lyrics with a grain of salt SOMETIMES when regarding this story.
fic playlist + not fully proof read
A deep sigh exhaled from your lips, head tilted back with your eyes closed in an attempt to calm yourself. The wind blew steadily across your face, making some loose strands of hair tickle against your cheeks, the feeling only made your irritation spike. Shaky fingers clenched the soft fabric of your jacket, trying not to lose your cool while on your break.
Today has been terrible. And you still had three hours left in your shift. Just kill me now.
The closer it got to the Fourth of July, the more your sanity dwindled. You felt like your feet were dragging, even though you were practically running from place to place, working the hardest you have in weeks.
Your hands were trembling by the time you went to lunch, now reduced to a small tremor, almost able to forget what you would be walking back into in twenty minutes. You just stayed focused on your phone, scrolling endlessly as a way to lessen stress’s grip on your throat.
For a brief moment you almost started to regret your New Year's resolution to quit smoking. The cravings tempted to drag you back in, crawling up your neck and pressing down on your brain in a headache.
You just had to keep reminding yourself it would be over soon. Get through these last three hours, then you could crawl into bed with an edible. Maybe you could start watching that new show everyone’s been talking about, or a documentary… Something, anything to take the edge off.
You looked down at your phone, cursing when you realized you should’ve come back from your break three minutes ago. Guilt twinged in your gut as you imagined the new girl’s annoyed expression.
A look that thankfully never came, finding your department empty when you returned. You peered into the deli’s backroom, nothing. The strings of your apron tighten around your waist as you tie them, making sure your hair is securely tucked away in the hairnet you wore, looking towards the bustling floor in hopes to catch the new girl.
A small sigh slipped from your parted lips as you eyed the counters, which was fortunately void of any waiting customers. For now.
You carried along your usual routine, making sure the steel surface of your work stations were clean, checking the hotbar to see what needed to be cooked. All of the cook temperatures were taken, so no worries there. The rotisseries were done, so you would have to pull those out soon before things picked up again.
You pulled your work phone out of your pocket, hoping to find nothing, only to be sorely disappointed. Heat enveloped your face as you saw a big red border that read ‘ten overdue orders’.
Great. Just fucking great. It was so busy before you went to lunch, that the pick-up orders completely slipped your mind.
For a brief moment you felt lost, eyes flicking to all the things that needed to be done. All the things that were left for you to do, just like always.
Worst of all, you still had no idea where the new girl was. Leaving you all by yourself in a slam packed store, where customers rushed around like the world was ending.
Before you could dwell on it further, you got to work. Quickly pulling out the meats and cheeses that needed to be cut.
There was no telling when the personal shoppers would show up, you just knew it would be soon. You wanted to get these orders done before you would be forced to apologize for not doing your job.
Thirty minutes passed before you finally saw your coworker again, walking back behind the counter at a leisurely pace. Taking her sweet time tying a fresh apron around her waist. Seeming to not notice your twisted features as you tried your best to push back tears, pulling out another rotisserie that a customer practically begged you for.
Your feet ached from rushing around to help people, trying to make up for the low staffing in both the deli and bakery. Wishing you had more considerate coworkers. Wondering why some of them insisted on going to lunch at the same time, on one of the busiest days of the week no less. Selfishness maybe? Whatever it was, it only served to make this already overwhelming day even worse.
Six of the online orders were done before anyone came to claim them. Your back prickling anxiously as they watched you complete the last four quickly, muttering a hollow apology for the wait.
You should have known better than to leave the new girl by herself, you could have waited to go to lunch until one of your new closers came in. Figuring two week’s experience was better than two days. At least they knew how to print a label correctly. The thought almost made you roll your eyes.
The oil in the fryer was popping and hissing around the chicken tenders you were cooking. It was one item you were able to grab in your rush, being pulled away by at least eight different customers in your coworker's absence. Some of them were nice, but most of them had a rude edge to their tone as they spoke to you.
“Sorry, Mr. Connor wanted to see me in the office.” Angel said, a small smile gracing her features. She walked over to look past the hotbar and to the swarm of customers.
“It’s fine.” Your answer was quiet, your mood completely deflated as you looked over your supplies.
The table was lacking plastic meal trays and disposable medium containers, and with no customers waiting on you, it seemed like the perfect time to slip away.
“I’m going to get more plates.” Your voice was slightly clipped, your exhaustion evident as you walked towards the side door that led to the barkery’s back room.
You looked over the raised cake case, catching the eyes of a customer who was already holding a cake up. Internally cursing yourself for even looking up.
“Excuse me, can you write on this?” The older woman asked, continuing to speak before you can even begin to reply, “I want it to say ‘Happy Birthday Becka’, that’s Becka with a CK not two C’s.”
“Ma’am-” You started, only to be cut off by a different customer. A woman around your age, shushing her child who was tugging at her shirt.
“Do you guys have sugar cookies? The ones without the icing on them.” She asked, her face twisting with annoyance as she looked back down at her kid.
“Um- uh, yeah, they’re right on that table right being you.” You pointed in the direction of the cookie table, briefly wondering how these clueless adults navigate through their regular lives.
The lady who had gotten your attention first side-eyed the younger woman before looking back to you expectantly. She pushed the cake closer to you on the raised end of the counter, “If you have pink that would be great.”
Something deep inside you clenched, your fingers tightening at your sides as you glanced back towards the deli. Seeing a small line building up at the hotbar. Fuck.
Your carefully constructed mask was beginning to slip. An inevitable breakdown was starting to bubble closer and closer to the surface, bound to make you snap completely.
You cycled through professional responses to counteract her demanding tone, her rude voice making you lock up for a moment. You looked anywhere but her eyes as the words slowly formulated in your mouth.
“Ma’am I’m sorry, but our cake decorators have left for the day.” You explained, your tone polite but unintentionally tense, “And I don’t know how to write on cakes. I work in the deli.”
She stared at you for a second too long, her eyes briefly narrowing before she rolled them. You heard her exhale an annoyed sigh as she took the cake back and placed it in the wrong spot. Your face twisted in a small grimace before you continued walking towards the door.
Then you heard someone calling out to you.
“Hey, do you know if you guys have any sour dough?” One of the online shoppers asked you, aiming the screen of her work phone towards you. The simple question stoking the flames of your annoyance.
“We might have some in the freezer.” You reply bluntly, somewhat rude as your face hardens, “Let me go look.” You offered automatically, already knowing it was expected of you.
Another hour passed in your shift, and you were just about ready to rip your hair out. Twenty minutes you’ve been standing at the slicer, customer after customer requesting big orders, not a single one under a pound. It made your chest tighten as irritation wrapped around your throat like barbed wire.
The questions didn’t stop either, and by the fifth you were certain you would be bald by the end of the day.
You were showing the new girl how things worked, again. Resisting the urge to jump in and do the simple tasks yourself, suppressing the annoyed exhales that threatened to slip out when she messed up for a third time.
She couldn’t even figure out how to put the cook times into the fryer’s, even after you showed her multiple times. It wasn’t her fault. You kept trying to remind yourself. She’s new, this is her first job. She’s nervous and doesn’t know what she’s doing. And that’s okay.
You hated training new people. It made you nervous, worrying you would accidentally say the wrong thing. Putting on your nicest voice as you walk them carefully through the steps, showing them how your combined departments worked while trying to push down your annoyance. You didn’t understand why you of all people had to be stuck with the task.
It’s because you’re the longest standing employee of the deli, you knew the most about this area, so your manager trusted you to train people correctly. Even on busy days like this. That was the simple answer, not that it made any of it better.
You walked to the back, finally away from the loud bustle of the holiday rush. You barely registered the way your hands flapped rapidly at your sides, like you were trying to shake off nonexistent water. It was a pitiful attempt to regulate yourself. You brought your hands to your chest, wringing them in a steady rhythm
“Can you help me for a second?” Your coworker, Brandon, walked into the back, “Do you know how to put in PPTO?”
Right, you forgot he was supposed to be here forty minutes ago.
There was a tightness in your jaw as you briefly ground your teeth together, walking over to help him. Becoming extremely tired of the nonstop questions and assistance you’ve had to answer and provide throughout your shift.
Once you were done showing him how to put in the time, you followed him out the door and back onto the floor, immediately being bombarded by two customers asking for sliced bread.
You glanced towards the bread wall, finding it barren. All the fresh loaves that were put out just hours before, now gone.
You turned on your heel and walked right back into the bakery's back room. Your feet stomped across the floor as you drew closer to the rack of labeled french bread. You muttered quietly to yourself, complaining to the air.
There was a rack of unbagged bread sitting just in front of your target. Without thinking, your right hand came up, fingers fully wrapping around the metal rack with the intention of pushing it out of the way. Seconds ticked by before your mind registered the blistering pain that surged through your palm.
“Holy fuck!” You yelped, a shocked gasp came from you as you yanked your hand back, your palm and fingers instantly consumed by invisible flames..
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Shelby, one of the bread baggers, ran into the back room. She watches as you clutch your wrist, tears streaming silently down your cheeks. Harsh breaths pushed through your wet lips, your palm beginning to swell. “Stay here, I’m calling Connor.”
Minutes later Connor rushed in with concern etched on his face as he made his way towards you. His eyes immediately dropped to your hand, which was beginning to swell.
“-just came out of the oven, I think she grabbed it without knowing.” Shelby explained, giving you a worried look.
“Holy shit, are you okay?” Connor asked, reaching out to grab your wrist softly, “Fuck. You need to go to the hospital.” The man didn’t even look at you for confirmation of his suggestion, instead he pushed you towards the door.
You tried to protest, but he cut you off, “You can make an accident report when you get back, I’ll tell Angel that I sent you out.” He continued to push you towards the front door of the grocery store, “Be safe, call me when you get to the hospital.”
A part of you wanted to roll your eyes, how the hell were you going to drive like this? Fucking great.
Once you got to your car you wrenched open the door forefully, plopping down in the driver's seat with fresh tears beginning their trek towards your chin.
Surprisingly, you were able to resist the urge to let out the scream that threatened to rip from your chest. Your hand clutched the steering wheel with an iron grip, nails digging into the leather.
You felt pathetic, utterly and absolutely pathetic, the stress sucking you dry and leaving you hollow on the inside. You tried to even out your breathing, leaning back against the headrest and closing your eyes.
Annoyance flared suddenly, too many layers, it’s too hot, your hair is starting to stick to your skin.
You were quick to rip off your work vest in three jerky motions, making your car give an annoying jolt, your body temperature was rising an irritating amount. It felt like your entire body was vibrating with anger simmering just below the surface of your skin.
The palm of your uninjured hand raked down your face once, twice, then a third time your blunt nails scratch across the skin of your cheek. Trying to will the torrent of emotions to sink back down, feeling overwhelmed.
A frustrated groan fell from your lips and finally you reached over for your phone, roughly removing it from the vest you threw against the passenger door a minute before.
“Hey kid, make it quick, can’t talk long.” Dana’s voice filtered in from the other end, immediately picking up. The sound of her voice made you relax a little.
The noise of the hospital settled in the background, “Mel, go help Santos in triage! We have a motorcycle accident coming in!” She called out to one of the many residents of the hospital, “Honey, don’t make me talk to myself here, why’re you callin’ me?”
“I hurt myself at work, I’m coming in.” Your voice was rough but still wet from the tears that threatened to fall once more.
“What?” She seemed to straighten up at that, her voice much more alert now, “What happened? You need me to send someone to pick you up?”
Guilt pinched against your nerves, you didn’t want Dana to go out of her way like that. Not when she was already busy. You could manage driving well enough, especially since the hospital was pretty close by.
“Nah, don’t bother. I can drive.” You tried to keep a steady voice, ignoring the aching burn that pulsed through your palm every time you accidentally grazed it against something. “Just wanted to let you know I was coming.”
“Alright kid, I’ll get Langdon to help you out.” With that you said your goodbyes and you started your car.
The drive to the hospital took longer than you expected. Dead stop traffic making a fifteen minute drive into a painfully annoying forty minute one.
It was like life was laughing directly in your face, making a mockery of you in the smallest ways possible. Even the way your AC was blowing was beginning to irritate you, the way your shirt collar sat too close to your neck, or the feeling of a small pebble at the toe of your shoe. Everything was going wrong in every possible way, and it was driving you up the wall.
Finally you were able to pull into the parking lot, which was packed full of cars. Great.
After five minutes of driving around you were able to park, quickly making your way towards the door to the emergency department.
The waiting room was full of people, conversations overlapping. Bodies were crammed together in the sweltering heat that two fans attempted to will away. It forced you to squeeze past people, causing a lump to form in your throat.
You weaved your way towards the front desk, greeting the women behind the glass window with a weary smile. Her brow raised as she took you in. You were sure you looked terrible, sweat collecting on your forehead as someone brushed against you while choking out a violent cough. You try not to curl into yourself as you attempt to mentally calm yourself in the overstimulating environment.
“I heard you were coming, let me page Dana.” Lupe was quick to pick up the phone, talking to your godmother once she answered, “She’s here, want me to send her in?... She looks like she’s ready to burst.” The last part was said a little quieter, but you still heard it.
The shorter woman stood and motioned for you to go towards the door, “Dr. Langdon should be on his way to get you. Dana’s caught up with a patient.” A relieved sigh came from you when you heard that.
The door opened soon after, your best friend walked out, his brows knit together in concern. He placed a hand on your shoulder to lead you into the familiar emergency department, “What happened? Dana said you got hurt at work.” His voice conveyed worry, but his face remained serious, brows furrowed as he examined you.
“Burned my hand on a hot rack at work.” You held out the injury in question, hearing a hiss come from the man next to you, “I didn’t know it just came out the oven. My hand was on it for probably two seconds tops.”
“Still long enough some pretty bad burns.” Langdon replied, hand gently clutching your wrist as he took a closer look.
Two med students you didn’t know walked past, a taller guy and a shorter girl with a septum ring and a serious face. Then you saw Princess, her back to you as she talked away with Perlah.
“Well, look who the cat dragged in!” A voice called from the other side of the desk, a door clicking shut behind her, Cassie McKay walked up with a bright smile, “Haven’t seen you in like a week, what brings you here?”
“She’s my new patient.” Langdon answered for you, leading you towards an empty room. Cassie’s brows furrowed, her eyes raking over you the same way Langdon’s did, before finally landing on your swollen hand hanging by your side.
“What?” McKay gasped, looking at the injury in question when you lifted your arm. “Jesus Christ, girl. You gotta be more careful.”
“Ogilvie, why don’t you come help me out?” Langdon called out to the taller guy that had walked past the two of you just a minute before. The man in question raised his head, mouth turned in a slight frown as he walked over and looked at you with disinterest. Almost like you were a waste of his time.
“Can’t I go help out with something a little more… urgent?” He looked at you, clearly noting that you were standing on your own, your breathing was fine, all in all you looked perfectly healthy aside from your aching hand.
Yet another med student that needed schooling on bedside manner, and restraint on complaining in the vicinity of conscious patients. You couldn’t help but raise a brow, looking back at Langdon, who merely handed the student a tablet with your previous history pulled up.
There was a moment of tense silence before Langdon finally pushed open the door to your favorite room, it was secluded enough from the usual chaos. Quiet enough that you would have time to calm yourself down.
The med student, Ogilvie, filtered into the room behind the two of you, immediately going to the computer. Langdon propped up the head of the hospital bed so you could sit against it comfortably, patting the sheets softly with a quiet “Sit down.”
You did as he said, sliding yourself back on the bed and attempted to get comfortable under the bright overhead light. It felt like thousands of eyes were staring into your soul, and you couldn’t help but fidget with the edge of your shirt as you waited for Langdon to question you.
“Rough day?” He sat down in the rolling stool beside the bed, a tablet resting on his thigh before he reached for your wrist.
“You have no idea.” You sigh, “Or well- I guess you probably do. I can’t really compare work struggles.”
“Sure you can,” He muttered, focusing more on your hand than the conversation, “Small second degree burns on the palm, first degree on the fingers. What would you say your pain level is?”
You thought for a second, thinking deeper than you probably should, making sure to give him an accurate number. “Probably a five? Maybe a four? It just hurts, not the worst pain I’ve felt, just feels like… a mini fire under my skin, I guess?.”
Langdon continued to ask you questions, examining you thoroughly, even going as far as monitoring your vitals just to make sure there wasn’t anything else to worry about.
“BP’s a little high.” He muttered, glancing from the screen back to you, “But other than that I think you’ll live. We’re gonna numb your hand, put some ointment on this sucker, then we’re gonna wrap it up. Sound good?”
All you did was nod, your eyes slipping closed as you tried to relax under the bright light, wishing the darkness behind your eyelids would help.
“Ogilvie, turn the light off.” Langdon told the student, clearly noticing your discomfort, he glanced back towards the hesitating med student.
“Why? You’ll barely be able to see what you’re doing.” The stranger protested, his dismissive tone making you roll your eyes behind the closed lids before you opened them. He glanced over towards you before the senior resident.
“Just do it.” Langdon sighed, glancing over at his student before asking you, “What’s your water intake been like today? Staying hydrated?”
All you could do was shrug, “Not really. I haven’t had the time.”
“Okay… we’re gonna keep the light on for just a few more seconds, if that’s alright.” Langdon gave you a small smile, patting your forearm, “Ogilvie, I want you to put her on an IV drip to get her on some fluids.” He turned back towards you to explain why, “You’re probably a little dehydrated and we don’t want you passing out in this heat, Dana’d kill me.”
All you could provide was a sigh as an answer, settling further back into the bed as you held out your arm. You felt like you were actively shutting down mentally, your mind going blank as the exhaustion fully settled over you like a thick blanket.
Ogilvie took Langon’s seat without a word and made quick work with the IV. The med student turned on the stool before standing, heading over towards the computer to type down a few things. He straightened his back slightly, his spine popping loud enough for you to hear, then he briefly glanced over his shoulder and looked at you curiously before turning back to the screen.
Langdon looked towards the front room, “Think Dana’s busy helping Princess with something.” The information made your shoulders slump, but you couldn’t be surprised. You were sure it’s been just as busy for them as work was for you, most likely worse.
The senior resident merely nodded to himself, his hand hovering over the light switch to turn it off himself, “Alright, time to get to work. I’m gonna have this lamp stand shine a light on your hand, just so I can see where to numb you. Then we’ll leave you alone for a bit.”
“Sounds good.” You repeat his words from earlier, ready to get this over with.
Langdon was quick, numbing your hand and allowing it to sit, “I’ll be back in just a few minutes while I wait for that to fully kick in. See if I can get Dana in here for you.”
“Thanks Langdon.” You spoke quietly, unsure if you could trust your own voice right now as you struggled to keep your emotions in check.
He pulled the curtain closed as he stepped out of the room, Ogilvie following after him quickly, the wooden door clicking shut quietly.
You sat there for a second, moving around a little before stilling. When you moved again, a little more aggressively, your IV cord got caught on the side of the bed. The pole holding your bag of fluids tilted before clattering to the ground, ripping the cord from your arm in quick succession, blood immediately bubbling to the surface.
You let out a gasp at the sharp pain, your eyes locked on the IV stand as your frustration finally reached its peak. Angry tears flowed freely as you stood, your legs feeling slightly weak as you bent down to lift the pole off the ground, the IV bag luckily still intact.
The sheets of the hospital bed scratched against the palm of your burnt palm when you attempted to sit back down, making you retract from the feeling, your skin prickling all the way up to your elbow. There was a clench in your chest, a heavy lump forming in your throat as you stared down at the offending sheets. Your left hand clenched at your thigh, blunt nails digging into your palms as your frustration teetered on the edge, ready to take one final plunge into the precipice.
After a second you finally sat in the middle of the bed, curling forward into yourself until your forehead rested against the mattress. Your hands fisted in your hair, the stinging pain in your palm keeping you anchored to reality, rocking your body as you tried to calm yourself down. Wishing more than anything that you could just file these intense emotions away somewhere, never to be seen again.
You were overwhelmed, tears soaking into the sterile sheets. You wiped at your nose harshly, trying to rid yourself of the snot that was beginning to clog your nostrils and run down to your top lip.
Your breathing was irregular, your chest tightening and your skin burning hot to the touch. Sweat clinged to the back of your neck as you attempted to will away the scream that wanted to rip itself from your throat.
Everything that could go wrong was going wrong, and it was all happening to you. What next? A plane crashing into the hospital? Maybe you’d have a heart attack from the stress? Or an aneurysm? At this point, anything could happen and you wouldn’t find it in yourself to be surprised. Hell, maybe you would start your period of all things.
Your head throbbed, your nails digging into your scalp as if you could rip the negative emotions from your brain.
In your almost silent meltdown you barely registered the door opening, jumping when you heard the soft scrape of a footstep drawing closer. Your teary eyes snapped up to the movement, immediately recognizing the black scrubs and comfortable looking jacket, a salt and pepper beard surrounding a soft, sympathetic smile.
“Just wanted to check in,” He said softly, holding up a small cup.
Embarrassment flooded you in an instant, shame that someone caught you like this, let alone Micheal Robinavitch of all people.
Your daughterly relationship with Dana helped you grow closer to a lot of the longtime residents, quickly becoming a welcome face in the chaos of the ED after you moved back to Pittsburgh. You grew close with Frank Langdon when he was an R2, drawn in by shared interests, slowly revealing the nerd that was hidden beneath extensive medical knowledge.
During your visits, you would always have food and good coffee for Dana and Langdon, just so they didn’t have to drink the watered down excuse of caffeine blended in the shared coffee maker. That simple routine progressed into brief hangouts when the ED wasn’t as busy. Often chatting away with Princess, getting the scoop on recent hospital drama. Or you’d be whisked away by McKay on her few minute breaks, allowing her to vent about her day’s frustrations. Sometimes you would get caught up on the betting board with Ahmad, almost always getting a twenty out of you in the process.
Then there was Robby. Someone you would consider a very close friend. A man that you also had very pathetic feelings for. A crush that formed after being invited to a few outings with the Pitt crew, always finding yourself pulled to the Chief Attending after a few drinks.
At first, when it came to interactions in the ED, he would insert himself into conversations between your godmother and you. Providing quips to lighten his own mood, practically beaming when you’d laugh at his particularly stupid jokes, saying “See, at least someone thinks I’m funny.”
Over time you began to open up to him more, getting more comfortable around the imposing man. Your usual overly polite and polished exterior melted away and revealed what was hiding beneath, much like it had done for some of the other residents.
The sarcasm and sass seemed to surprise Robby a bit at first, not entirely expecting it after the very formal conversations you would have in the past. But it was a welcome change, drawing him in a little closer to the point where you both became friends.
Eventually you were able to meet Jack, the boyfriend Robby occasionally mentioned. He was the night shift’s attendant, a little rough around the edges at first, grumpy looking on the outside until Robby said something that made him smile.
The three of you would have breakfast on occasion, usually when you were heading to the hospital to see Dana and Langdon. It was a routine that began after you ran into them at a coffee shop local to the hospital, seeing it as a good excuse for the three of you to get to know each other better.
You found yourself telling them things that you didn’t usually tell others, comforted by their laid back nature. Talking to them made you feel human. You didn’t feel like the odd one out. They were understanding and even accommodating to your quirks, taking it in stride.
At times you wondered if they just saw you as some helpless girl, barely able to navigate through life like any regular adult could. Unable to comprehend why they would want to spend their time with you. You weren’t nearly as well accomplished as them, just some girl working retail and doing volunteer work on the side, helping out your local charities and food banks.
You didn’t have a fancy degree, or a two story home with a garage. Just a shitty duplex with one small bedroom, and a dream to make the world a better place. At the end of the day, you weren’t really anything special.
It must be pity. That’s the only reason they’d want to spend time with you.
“You okay?” Robby raised a brow, you averted your eyes away from him, “Is that blood?”
“My-” Your voice caught in your throat as the word rasped, forcing you to clear your throat before continuing, “My IV stand fell over. I’m sorry-” Your voice broke towards the end, another sob ripping through before you could stop it, “Sorry- I didn’t-” You hid your face in your hands, unable to look at him as shame consumed your entire being.
‘I’m so fucking pathic.’ You thought to yourself, ‘Curled up like a little kid because of a stressful day at work.’
Which in reality, was a major understatement. This has been building after weeks of stressful days, your body being worn down until you finally snapped. It wasn’t even just your hand that hurt, it was everything; your back, legs, and feet all held this stinging pain that wouldn’t leave no matter how much you relaxed on your off days.
“Hey,” Robby’s voice softened in a way you’ve never heard, it was gentle, not belittling. The stool creaked softly as he sat on it, the bed dipping a little when he rested his folded hands on the mattress, “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart.” The simple nickname made your heart stutter, he reached out and placed a hand on your shoulder. “Are you in pain?” He watches you shake your head.
“Then what’s going on, what’s got you so worked up?” The tone he spoke with wrapped around your heart like a bandaid, slowly coaxing you out of your own head, gently pushing away the insults you were internally flinging at yourself.
“It’s stupid.” Your voice sounded so raw with emotion, strained and wet with tears and mucus, “Seriously, I’m overreacting so much it’s not even funny.” There was a tremble to your words as you tried to laugh it off. Your lip wobbled as you picked pathetically at the cuff of your pants, wishing you could just fade away and he would move on to another patient. Leave you in your state of humiliation to reflect alone.
“Well luckily for you, I’m not laughing.” He replied, “So go ahead. Shrink Robby is in the house, you’ve got my full attention.” You could practically hear the small smile stretching across his lips.
“I’d be so scared to have you as my therapist.” You attempted to joke, the quiet watery laugh you let out ringing hollow. “You’re too mean.”
“Yeowch. Tell me how you really feel.” He chuckled softly. Your embarrassment dwindled away when he didn’t go out of his way to judge your fragile state.
“I think I just did.” You sassed back, sounding congested.
Robby provided you a stable comfort, his hand remaining on your shoulder like an anchor that kept you grounded. Your shaking and sniffling eventually subsided, your body relaxing a little more when Robby’s thumb stroked your skin through the fabric of your T-shirt.
His head bowed a little, trying to catch a glimpse of your tear stained face, “Hey,” He coaxed softly, “Can you look at me, sweetheart?” The question wasn’t demanding, it was a gentle request, one you complied to at your own pace.
Your eyes drifted from the sterile white sheets and met his. This was the worst state he could have possibly seen you in, and yet his eyes remained welcoming and sympathetic. Pulling you into the warmth of his gaze and making you feel safe, cared for.
“Mind if I take a look at your hand?” He asks gently, reaching for your now numb right hand.
You extended your arm out to him without a word, his touch as soft as possible as he examined the burn. His brows tightened briefly before looking at you through his lashes, a simple thing that made your heart thump against your ribs.
You tried your best to ignore the lingering thought of the heart monitor beside your bed, praying that it didn’t spike and give you away.
“You should probably go back to work.” You muttered, “I’ll be fine until Frank gets back.”
“Let’s get that IV back in you first, okay?” With that he got up to flick the big light on, before reclaiming his spot, quickly putting on a pair of blue gloves.
After a few quiet seconds you finally laid back against the head of the hospital bed. Letting out a heavy sigh as you extend your aching legs, clenching your toes in your shoes to alleviate the burning that settled in the soles of your feet. Your arms laid at your side, your palms facing towards the ceiling. You tried your hardest to forget how you probably looked right now, definitely not your best, that was for certain.
“You alright?” Robby asked after a beat, looking at you thoughtfully, watching you nod stiffly. He didn’t say anything as he moved the stool back a little, opening the supply drawer with practiced ease, “I’m gonna have to do the other arm if that's alright. Did Langdon do this one?” He pointed at your blood splotched arm, an alcohol pad wiping it off your skin not even a moment later.
“Some med student. Ogilvie or something?” You watched as he rolled around to the left side of the bed, “Kept giving me weird looks.”
As if summoned into existence, the med student in question appeared. His head peeked into the room past the drawn curtain.
“Did she take her IV out?” The man asked, brows furrowed.
“You didn’t check to see if the cord was tangled up around the IV stand.” Robby answered for you, the soft tone he previously sported instantly going away. He didn’t spare the resident a glance as he patted the pit of your forearm. “It fell and ripped out of her arm.”
“Oh. Sorry, it won’t happen again.” He replied, “I wanted to ask about some information on her information chart. I think there might have been a mistake made.” The student didn’t even look at you, his eyes trained on the back of Robby’s head.
There was a sharp sting on your arm as Robby inserted the IV, pain that went away almost immediately as he stroked your hand.
The man looked back towards the student after giving you a once over, “What kind of mistake?” Robby asked, standing from the stool and walking over towards the computer.
Ogilvie walked up beside him, pointing at the screen and talking in a hushed voice that you could still very much hear.
“Under previous diagnosis, it says she has autism. But I don’t see any obvious signs pointing to that fact. She seems fairly normal, all things considered.” He looked at Robby for a second, awaiting a response from his attending.
His words made your eyes widen just a fraction, who did this guy think he was?
Of course this wasn’t the first time you’ve heard similar statements. People’s minds usually drift towards obvious or even stereotypical outward signs to prove a diagnosis. Not for once considering how it presents in different people, only thinking of the societally placed baseline.
Robby’s eyebrows shot upwards, his jaw tightening before he glanced back towards you, eyes immediately catching your annoyed expression.
“Why don’t you come with me out here for a second?” The attending didn’t give the student a second to reply before clapping a hand down on his shoulder leading him out of the room, “I’ll find Dana and Langdon for you, sweetheart.” Robby shot over his shoulder, giving you a sweet smile before turning the light off and disappearing behind the curtain.
You couldn’t even find it in yourself to be truly upset. It was something you heard occasionally when it came to new med students, the respect not yet hammered in after just a few days of working with patients. It just shocked you how confident Ogilvie was about his theory, even going as far as suggesting such a thing in front of you.
“There she is!” Dana said happily, a bright smile on her face, “Let’s see that hand of yours, yeah?”
Langdon walked in soon after the charge nurse, an apologetic look on his face as he gave his excuse, “I am so sorry, there was a kid that came in with a broken femur. I promise I didn’t forget about you.”
“Your med student is a dick.” You said, dismissing your friend’s excuse, instead watching him pull out the items he needed to patch you up.
“Yeah I was wondering why Robby was chewing him out. What’d he say to you?” The man asked, blue eyes focused on your numbed hand, “Swelling’s gone down, that’s good.” He muttered more to himself rather than you.
“He suggested my patient information was wrong because I didn’t seem autistic enough.” Your words rang bitter, eyes rolling as you remembered his attempt at a hushed tone.
“Jesus, that fuckin’ kid needs to get a grip...” Dana shook her head, crossing her arms over his chest.
“I’m sorry what? What the hell is his problem?” Langdon almost seemed more offended than you did, his brows furrowing, “I hope Robby gives him hell, then.” He shook his head.
“It’s fine, really.”
“You eat anything today?” Dana shifted the conversation back onto your physical wellbeing.
You shrug, shaking your head slightly before replying, “I had half a bag of chips for lunch. I’ve been running around all day so I didn’t want to make myself sick.” Your fingers fiddled with the bedsheet as you averted your eyes from hers.
Langdon and Dana exchanged a look before he focused on wrapping your hand.
It was a look you knew very well, one that said you wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. Whether you liked it or not.
“Well we’re going to need to monitor you for a little longer, then you’re comin’ home with me tonight. We got a deal?” Dana said after a beat, watching Langdon as he finally finished.
“Just as long as you don’t make me watch that stupid show you’ve been obsessed with.” You almost groaned at the idea.
Dana always had a habit of watching these terrible sitcoms and soap operas with way too many seasons and god awful writing. When you lived with her she would sit you down and force you to watch them with her, saying it was because she wanted to spend ‘quality time’ with you. But really, you suspected it was her subtle way of torturing you.
“I thought you said you liked it!” She couldn’t hide the smirk breaking past her feigned hurt, already knowing well enough how you felt.
“I was lying. Sorry.” You give your best sorry smile, holding your left hand up in defense.
You absolutely were not sorry, though. Knowing you would not survive season twenty-six of ‘Millward Hospital: A Love Story’, Dana’s new favorite. A painfully boring show about two sexy doctors that couldn’t stop awkwardly flirting with each other, or getting into fights over their patients beds. The worst part; the main characters haven’t even gotten together yet, over the course of twenty-six seasons. You might as well start writing your will now.
The older woman just shook her head, chuckling, “Alright, whatever. You’re pick tonight, okay?”
Eventually both Langdon and Dana were pulled away to deal with a trauma patient that was coming in. Leaving you alone to scroll on your phone silently. Your body finally settled, relaxing against the bed, the stress of the day sinking into the foreground of your mind.
It was weird. Out of all places, a hospital was your main space of comfort. Maybe it was because that’s where Dana always was. .
Because of your godmother, you practically grew up in medical settings. Tucked under her motherly wing ever since you were young, with her taking charge when your mother was pulling doubles to provide for your two person household.
You even lived with Dana after you turned fifteen. When your relationship with your birth mother turned sour, giving up on you after she got into a relationship with some pharmacist named Phil. Jumping at the opportunity to live the perfect white picket fence life she always dreamed of.
Dana stepped up and became the support system you always needed. An emotionally intelligent person who just wanted what was best for you. Someone who didn’t push her problems onto you, forcing you to solve them. She was selfless with her care, giving without expectations, accepting you with open arms and giving you a shoulder to cry on.
“Oh please. Don’t beat yourself up, kid. I always wanted a daughter anyway.” She said one night after a particularly difficult day, your insecurities laid bare, wondering why she would waste her time taking care of someone like you.
There was a knock on your door after about an hour. Your head lifting just as Jack peered inside. The sight of him at this time made your brows furrow, knowing well enough that his shift wasn’t supposed to start just yet.
“I sure hope that isn't a look of disappointment.” Jack smiled, walking into the room and letting the door click quietly behind him.
“What are you doing here?” You dismiss his joke with a question, taking in the cargo pants and black T-shirt that hugged his torso perfectly. Jesus Christ, get it together.
“I was called in early. Robby said you were here.” His eyes immediately looked down at your bandages, “How’s the hand?”
“Frank said I’ll live.” You replied, making Jack smile again, “Burned myself on a bread rack at work. Fresh out the oven.”
The man stepped closer, taking the stool at your bedside. His elbows were braced on his knees as he leaned forward a little, looking at you through his lashes like Robby had done earlier, “Wanna talk about it?”
Your stomach flipped, feeling like he could see right through you, exposing your exhaustion to the night shift attending. That or Robby mentioned your meltdown. You decided to believe the second option, hoping that your emotional pain wasn’t that obvious.
A second ticked by before you responded with a shrug, “I mean yeah, kinda. But it’s really nothing exciting. Just general normal people problems that I can save for Dana.” Your voice grew quieter as slight insecurity nipped at your nerves, you could not complain about your mundane life to someone like Jack. Someone as well accomplished as Jack.
“I like hearing about normal people problems.” He straightened his back and crossed his arms, “Especially if they’re yours.”
A flush crawled up your neck at his words. ‘He’s just being nice. He’s your friend, of course he would care.’ You tried to reassure yourself as to not sputter your reply.
“Yeah right.” You replied, rolling your eyes as you kept your voice from coming out in a nervous whisper, “I’d probably put you to sleep.”
“Not a chance.” His voice softens in an unspeakable way, a dip in cadence you rarely heard from the man. “Lay it on me.”
You stared at him for a second, a small snort coming from you.
A laugh blew from his nose before he leaned forward just an inch, arm stretching out to place a gentle hand on your calf. His fingers barely squeezed, the feeling most likely would have gone unnoticed if you weren’t focusing so heavily on it. The touch quickly left, making you let out an unintentional breath. The flush from earlier only seemed to climb higher, and you hoped that he wouldn’t notice.
“I’m serious, I’m all ears.” He reassured once again, leaning his elbow on the mattress, “I still have like forty minutes until my shift officially starts, so I got plenty of time.”
After a second of studying him you let out a small sigh, preparing yourself to explain what was going on in your head.
“I think I’m just really burnt out with work.” You shrug, allowing the words to flow freely,
“It’s the same stuff every single day, nothing changes. There’s drama all the time. And I get these rude fucking customers that treat me like I don’t even exist.” Your chest rises as you inhale deeply, exhaling through your nose, “Recently our entire closing crew in the deli got fired, some of the best people we had. I was super close with most of them.” You shook your head at the mere memory, “I was a wreck. Left work crying. And now we have four new closers that have no idea what they’re doing. They’re rude as fuck, and I have no interest in getting to know them.” Your annoyance spiked as you thought about all the things they expected you to do without question, too lazy to learn for themselves. It grated your nerves.
“I love the place, and I really like the people I open with on the bakery side of my department. But in the deli I just… I don’t know anyone anymore and it just makes me really sad. And I know it’s ridiculous to get hung up on coworkers, this was bound to happen sooner or later. But now it’s like anywhere I turn someone’s asking me questions, I have to clean up after them. It’s all on me, every single fucking time.”
“I mean shit, leave the freezer door open so we get this huge ice build up every single month.” A scoff follows your words, remembering the large puddle of ice that greeted you in the freezer this morning, beginning to stretch across the floor. “I can barely get anything done because of them.”
Jack’s hand had traveled to your forearm at some point during your rant, his thumb gently massaging the skin. He listened to you intently, nodding along when it was needed, a sympathetic look on his face.
“And what happened today?” He asked after a beat of silence, making sure you were done.
A small bitter laugh blew from your nose, your face contorting into something akin to a grimace. You could practically feel the stress seeping back into your skin as you thought back to your day.
“It was so busy. The place was completely slammed by eight, and it just didn’t stop. So many people were coming up to the deli asking for stuff, getting mad when we were out of certain things.” Then your eyes widened just a fraction as you remembered one particular interaction, “Like this one lady that asked to see my manager after I was just a little rude. Said I was giving her a ‘death glare’.” You roll your eyes, shaking your head to yourself.
“And we had a new girl come in a few days ago, I’ve been training her. That only added to everything else going on.” You could feel tears swell as you thought back, “I just got so overwhelmed, there were so many people. Customers asking questions that made me freeze up. God,” You sigh out, “I was struggling so hard to find the right things to say, and they would just look at me like I was a fucking idiot. It was so embarrassing." You clenched your eyes shut, “Like, I’m just trying to do my job, and it’s like everyone expects me to work like the fucking Flash or something.”
“I know how that can be.” Jack said sympathetically, “Too many things happening at once can drive even the calmest person insane.” His words eased the tension that was building under your skin.
“I’ve had so many days where I’m drowning under the pressure. A nonstop stream of patients, people yelling at me, dismissing me like I mean nothing when all I’m trying to do is help them. It can be frustrating.” He looked at you a little closer, “Like we’re robots programmed to do the impossible.” His brows knit together, lips quirking up into a sad smile, complete understanding adorning his expression. “Things happen, and it makes you feel like it’s your responsibility to bear the burden alone.”
Jack has never been this vulnerable with you. But he knew how much you relied on shared experience as a way to convey sympathy and understanding. It was your way of reaccessing a situation through different perspectives, finding comfort in the fact that you weren’t entirely alone. Especially when it came from Robby and Jack, two men that have been through more than most could say.
“Exaclty. Drowning while everyone looks right through you, like you mean absolutely nothing.” You nod, sniffling quietly, “I always go out of my way to do everything for my coworkers, even though I technically don’t have to. But they always say they have so much to do, that they don’t have the time,” You shook your head, looking down at your lap, “So I just do it all for them, because in my head, I always feel like someone will get mad at me if I don’t.”
After you finished speaking, there was a comfortable silence that stretched between the two of you. Jack’s thumb was still stroking a lazy pattern on your forearm. His hold was gentle but firm… Grounding. It made your heart flutter as he pressed a little closer to the side of the bed.
Neither one of you said anything for a short while, his eyes staring down at your tattoo under his thumb before a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
“Remember when Robby tripped over his shoelaces at that gallery we went to a few months ago?” The sudden reminder of that event made you laugh, small giggles as the memory flooded your mind.
“Oh my god-” You replied, “That shit was so funny. I feel bad for laughing about it but…” Your voice trailed off with a louder laugh.
Jack’s smile only got wider, fishing his phone from his pocket as your giggles quieted to small smiley exhales.
A video started playing on the device. Then the screen was facing you at the exact moment a tall man stumbles, a loud grunt coming from him as he scrambles before finally hitting the floor in a big heap. Jack got it on fucking video.
A fit of laughter overtook your body, taking Jack’s phone before falling back against the mattress, watching the video back to back.
The grunt was the selling point of the entire thing, like an old man standing up from his recliner. Tears streak down your face as you gasp for breath, your cheeks aching from smiling so hard. Your hand braced on your chest as you willed yourself to calm down.
“Oh- my god that’s so fucking funny.” You whispered before giggling again, “Like he literally caught air for a second.” It sounded like you were on the verge of crying when you laughed again, your voice straining, “I’m actually so impressed.”
The man next to you was laughing along, albeit not as enthusiastically as you were. His smile stretched as he watched the video again, shaking his head, “He’s gonna be so mad when he finds out about this.”
“Find out what?” Robby said suddenly, making you jump at his sudden appearance.
“Oh nothing, dear. Just a little inside joke between us two.” Jack’s tone was teasing, sending his boyfriend a sarcastic tight-lipped smile.
“Uh huh…” Robby hummed, disbelieving but quick to move on, he looked at you with softer eyes, “How you feeling, sweetheart? Better?”
A small smile tugged at your lips, “Yeah, Jack came to bother me for a bit before his shift started.” You explained as if it wasn’t obvious.
The three of you talked for a few more minutes before Robby had to duck out again, being called to a trauma coming in. Jack eyed the door for just a moment before letting out a soft sigh, he looked at you for a beat before finally speaking.
“Hey, you wanna go out for dinner on Thursday? Robby will be off, so will I.” The question was innocent enough, but there was something underneath its simplicity that made you raise a brow. “There’s this really nice restaurant in just a town over. Amazing food.”
Your mind clung to the words, wondering why he would be asking this. The phrasing threw you off, not used to hearing him say the words ‘go out’ unless it was in reference to Robby. And for dinner too? The three of you never went out for dinner.
It was always breakfast, or small outings a few times a month. Museums, the zoo, movies at their house, getting lunch with Jack while Robby was at work. Morning activities, never anything past four p.m.
Well, except for spur of the moment outings with the other residents of the ED. But that was usually Frank or Trinity’s idea. Even then, you were never alone with the two men at such an hour.
It made you wonder what exactly prompted this kind of invite. Mind working harder than it should.
You were beginning to think that maybe you were overthinking this a little too much. Why did you need an explanation? Jack is your close friend, did he really need a reason to have dinner with you?
You were so lost in thought you didn’t notice the hopeful look in Jack’s eyes as he watched you.
“Yeah, I don’t see why not.” You finally respond.
“Good. Wear something nice.” He winked, finally standing from the stool and walking towards the door. Leaving you to sit in your flustered state.
On Thursday you arrived at the restaurant Jack picked out. From the outside it looked sleek, much fancier than how you dressed. There were tall windows, allowing you to see inside. Deep red tablecloths draped across the tables, patrons fiddling with the thin stems of their wine glasses.
There was an elegance to this place that intimidated you, lacking the same comforting feel that dingy diners and local coffee shops gave you.
Your fingers twisted the fabric of your dress as you walked inside, hesitantly making your way to the hostess.
She greeted you with a kind smile, effortless professionalism seeping into her words as she welcomed you into the restaurant and requested the name of your reservation.
“Uh- it should be under Abbot, I think.” You reply, nerves eating you up as you glance around the lobby.
With a nod she led you towards the dining room. There was a certain grace in the way she carried herself, class and confidence in her every step.
She easily guided you towards a table where two very familiar men sat side by side. They were absorbed in a conversation of their own, Jack nodding along to whatever Robby was saying, a soft look in his eyes as their shoulders brushed together.
They were dressed a lot less casually than you were used to, making your breath catch in your throat. Both men wore simple button ups, Robby was even wearing a tie, you didn’t even know he owned one.
Your internal temperature seemed to rise as you got closer, rubbing your hands together in a feeble attempt to stop them from sweating. “They cleaned up well.” You thought, forcing a small smile onto your face as the hostess finally stopped.
“Here you are, ma’am.” At the sound of her voice, both men looked up at her, then to you. “Mrs. Lenard should be back shortly to take care of you, enjoy.”
She left you with that, her dress fluttering at her ankles as she made her way back towards the front of the house.
You were quick to sit down in front of Jack, placing your purse on the chair beside you.
You had no idea why you felt so nervous. This was far from the first time you’ve had a personal outing with both men. They were your friends, they liked hanging out with you, but this was just different. Something about this setting felt intimate. Even more so when Jack’s request for dinner, and the wording, kept replaying in your head for the last two days.
Hopefully things would be cleared up by the end of the night. Who knows, maybe it was Jack or Robby’s birthday and they just forgot to mention it.
“I don’t think the purse is gonna walk away, sweetheart.” Robby finally said, making your eyes snap up to look at him.
Oh, right. Greetings were probably important to start the night off right.
“Sorry- was just thinking about something.” You brushed off your brief moment of strange behavior with a laugh, “So, what’s the occasion? Cause this place is fancy as shit.” You leaned closer to whisper the last part, eyeing nearby patrons to make sure they didn’t look in your direction
“No occasion.” Jack shrugged, taking a sip of his wine, “You’ve had a difficult week. So I figured it would be nice to treat you to some good food, and even better conversation with your two favorite people.”
His explanation left you slightly stunned, briefly wondering to yourself “Why the hell would he want to do that?”
Robby seemed to notice your confused expression, making a smile quirk up behind his beard, “You don’t have to worry about paying for it either. It’s all on us.” That only served to deepen your furrowed brows, “And after this, if you’re feeling up to it, we’re going to that new mini golf place that just opened up in town.”
“You guys? And… Mini golf?” You shake your head, scrunching your face as a smile rises. “Like for real?” Then his offer finally registered in your mind, “And you really don’t have to pay for my food. I’ll be alright.” You protest, waving your hand dismissively.
“Don’t even worry about it.” Robby replied, giving you a teasing wink that made your heart stutter.
“I’m paying for it.” The way Jack said it probably would’ve made your knees weak if you were standing. That same gentle tone he used on you a few days prior, whispered words that wrapped around your head, leaving a thick fog in its wake.
The man continued, now sporting a teasing voice, “I also want to add that I happen to love mini golf, thank you very much. You can lose the judgemental tone about that.” His expression was a perfect poker face, but his eyes gave him away. He leaned forward and lowered his voice, “And between you and me, Robby sucks at mini golf. So go easy on him, alright?”
“I can still hear you, babe.” Robby muttered as his eyes scanned over the menu, glasses now perched on the bridge of his nose.
“I’m surprised, cause you usually don’t hear anything else I say.” Jack teased back, a small smile curling at the corner of his lips.
You sat there for a beat, watching the two of them interact. Wondering if you would ever be so lucky to find someone who loves you just as much as Jack loves Robby.
The thought makes something twist in your gut, not entirely convinced that you would be able to get over this stupid crush long enough to even think about getting into a relationship with someone else. Getting to know someone, starting from scratch with the expectation of a relationship. It just didn’t appeal to you at all.
“Oo they have American wagyu. You ever had that, sweetheart?” Robby’s gaze flicked up to look at you.
You looked down at the menu, already knowing that the answer was a simple no. Even then, you hummed quietly before shaking your head, “Hmm, I don’t think so. I’ve heard it’s pretty good, though.” The doctor merely smiled at your response.
“It is very good, actually. You should get it.” Robby said, Jack nodding along to his boyfriend’s suggestion, “That is, if you like steak. If not, then there are a lot of really good pasta dishes.”
His idea settled between the three of you. Your fingers slowly trailing down the menu, looking for the steak Robby was talking about. When you found it your eyes immediately locked onto the price.
Oh fuck no.
There was no way you were going to make them pay almost two hundred dollars for a steak, that was absolutely absurd. You already felt bad enough that they were going out of their way like this for you, but for him to recommend something so expensive? Robby must’ve been out of his mind.
You couldn’t help but shake your head, eyes widening just a fraction as you looked at the other prices, none of them were a cent under fifty dollars.
There was no way they were expecting you to just happily eat away their money like this. This had to be some elaborate set up to get you in their bad graces.
Jack looked at you, placing his menu back onto the table to give you his full attention, “You don’t have to get the steak if you don’t want to.” He said casually, assuming your worried expression was from just one item on the menu. Not the entire damn thing.
“No it’s-” You shook your head, “It’s not that. I mean- have you seen these prices? This is insane. Sixty-four dollars for penne alla vodka? That’s-”
“Completely affordable on our salaries.” Robby interrupted your spiraling thoughts, “We’re not doing this expecting anything in return, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Jack cleared his throat quietly as a simple way to insert himself, “Robby and I come here at least once a month for date night.” He explained, as if that would make you feel any better, “You’re welcome to get absolutely anything you want, I promise.” His voice was laced with reassurance, reaching across the table to lay a gentle hand on yours.
Oh god, you were third wheeling their monthly date. That was the only thing your mind could cling to. They pitied you enough to ruin their personal ritual, all because you had a bad day. Guilt began to fester in your stomach before you could stop it. Why would they do something like that?
The two men exchanged a look before settling back to look at their menus again.
With each item, you carefully examined the prices, palms beginning to sweat once again. It was honestly ridiculous, why the hell would a restaurant make their prices so high? There was no way the food was that good.
You were so absorbed in the menu that you didn’t even notice Robby leaning towards Jack to whisper something in his ear, only looking up when you heard one of them sigh.
“You okay?” You asked, feeling nervous at the sudden and serious shift at the table.
“Hmm? Oh, don’t worry about me.” Jack smiled sweetly, reaching over to squeeze your hand once more, the touch lingering for a second longer than last time, “What’re you thinking about getting, honey?” Instead of looking towards Robby, his eyes stayed on you.
Your mind seemed to stutter when the pet name slipped from the man’s lips, the softness in his gaze as he looked at you. He said it with such ease, like it was normal for him to look at you with such intensity.
Usually, during your previous hangouts outside of the hospital, they were completely fine. They would joke around with you, telling you about their recent excursions, or moments in the hospital that made them laugh rather than wince. It was always light hearted, casual, normal. But tonight they just seemed… off. The way they were acting seemed more serious. Jokey demeanors pushed aside for something you couldn’t quite place.
You thought about Jack paying for your food. It wouldn’t have been something you questioned if this was the coffee shop, or the diner you often met up at. Both men have bought your meals plenty of times before without being prompted to, just going out of their way to do it anyway. It was something you stopped protesting a long time ago, knowing you would never win.
But this wasn’t a five dollar coffee, or a twelve dollar meal that promised heart congestion in your future. This was a fine dining restaurant that you most certainly did not belong in.
Above all, you just felt lost, clueless.
Why you? What had you done to deserve something like this?
“Are you okay?” Robby aimed your question back at you, concern etched on his features, probably noticing the panicky look on your face as your mind continued to race, “Was it too much asking you to come here?”
“I don’t really know.” You chuckled, feeling like a spotlight was shining directly onto you, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m really grateful that you guys invited me along. I just feel bad, I mean- I really don’t want to impose on your date just because I had a shitty day at work.” Your hands dropped into your lap, fingers twisting the skirt of your dress nervously, suddenly feeling very overwhelmed. “It feels a little selfish.”
“Shit.” You heard Robby mutter under his breath before he straightened, “I’m sorry, we should’ve thought about this a little more before picking this place. We just thought…” His words trailed off as he tried to pick out the right words.
“How ‘bout this? We can go somewhere else, your pick. Mini golf stays on the table, though.” Jack interrupted his boyfriend before he could continue, “Your call, honey.”
It felt like ice water was being poured over your head at such a proposition. There was no way you were going to now ruin their date just because you were uncomfortable. There was no way they valued your friendship that much to completely alter their plans just for you. It was simply ridiculous.
“Hello, I apologize for my late arrival. We had a very important guest come in, I hope you can forgive me.” A beautiful woman walked up, a sleek black tablet held in her hands, “Would you like to start the first course?”
Jack eyed you for a second before looking at the woman, “Actually, we were just about to leave. I’ll pay for the wine, of course, but we’ve changed our minds about dining with you tonight.” The words only made guilt and shame twist further in your stomach, this was your fault.
“I see, well the first glass of wine is complimentary per guest. So there is no charge, allow me to escort you to the door.”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you, though.” Robby gave a tight lipped smile, slowly standing and walking to the side of the table where you sat. He held out his hand, the gesture feeling much more intimidating than it should have.
Great, now they were mad at you. It felt like your lungs were being squeezed closed, your eyes stinging with unshed tears.
You accepted his hand, certain that he would be able to feel the build up of perspiration on your skin.
Jack stood next, pushing both his and Robby’s chair to the table, giving a curt nod to the waitress before you all started walking towards the entrance of the building.
Robby’s hand was still in yours when the night breeze whispered across your heated skin. You were quick to step away, not wanting either of them to get the wrong idea. The last thing you needed was to humiliate yourself even further.
Just when Jack started to speak you interrupted.
“I’m sorry.” It came out pathetically quiet, your head was bowed as you studied the sidewalk with feigned interest.
Embarrassment consumed you, feeling worse than when Robby walked in on you mid meltdown.
This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go, it was meant to just be a simple dinner between two boyfriends and their close friend. And you had ruined it because the prices freaked you out, surely they would never want to spend time with you again, not after being such a burden on them.
“You shouldn’t-” The words caught in your throat as you suddenly felt entirely too overwhelmed, “Jesus Christ why am I about to cry.” You muttered quietly, hands coming up to roughly push away the build up of tears, “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to-” You took a deep breath to push down the choked sob that threatened to rip through your throat, your hands dropping again and clutching at your dress, “Fuck, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m so sorry. I-”
“Hey, hey.” Jack reached out, his hands hovering just next to your bicep but not touching, like he was uncertain that was what you wanted right now, “It’s okay, honey. I promise we’re not mad at you, right Mike?”
“Of course not.” The other man shook his head, “That place is way too uptight for me, anyways. I just like the food.”
Jack’s hand came up, his index finger gently pushing your chin up so he could look you in the eye. Something akin to worry flickered in his eyes when he noticed the tears that were pooling in yours.
“Oh sweetheart, it’s alright.” He whispered, voice like velvet in this close proximity. His hand stretched across your cheek before settling on your jaw, placing a soft kiss on your forehead and pulling you into a hug, something you would have hated if it was anyone else.
“I’m sorry, we weren’t thinking. Just wanted to make you feel special after all the shit you’ve been through recently.” He said against your hair, the rumble of his voice soaking into your body.
A bitter, disbelieving laugh muffled against his dress shirt, “The shit I’ve been through? You can’t be serious, right?” The attempt at a joke came off sounding more annoyed than you intended.
“Sorry. I just mean-” You backed out of the hug and looked between both men, “Sure, yeah, I was having a rough time the other day. But… you guys don’t have to go out of your way for me like this.” You sniffled, backing away a little more, wrapping your arms around yourself, “I appreciate that you guys care about me… enough to do something like this.” You looked down at your shoes, becoming increasingly more aware that the three of you were still standing outside the restaurant. “But it’s not your responsibility to look after me.”
“Sure it’s not.” Robby replied quickly, “But we wouldn’t have invited you if we didn’t want you here with us.” His words surprised you a little, even more so when you saw the look in his eyes, something unmistakably raw swimming around his dark irises.
“But why?” You asked, almost feeling dumb when their faces twisted with confusion, “I mean, I’m sure there’s plenty of other people you'd rather spend your time with.”
A scoff came from Jack, “Nobody rings close enough to you, honey.” He stated matter-of-factly, no hesitation as he continued to explain, “Not everyone’s as easy going as you, or as genuine. Hell, even the empathy you have for others would give some med students a run for their money.”
“And not everyone finds me as funny as you do.” Robby butted in, receiving a brief glare from his boyfriend, “What?” You couldn’t help but laugh, “See? She thinks I’m hilarious.”
“At least someone does.” Jack responded with a lighthearted tone, nudging his elbow into Robby’s side.
Finally Jack took a step back, both Robby and you falling a few steps behind as you walked through the parking lot towards your cars. Finding yourself lucky that you were able to find a spot right next to them.
“Food and mini golf is still an option if you want.” Jack said, stopping behind your car. He had his arms crossed over his chest, making his shirt appear tighter than it was. You had to stop yourself from staring.
You looked between the two of them, contemplating the offer silently before nodding, “Okay.” A beat of silence passed before you added, “Can it be somewhere with drinks?”
A smile spread across their faces, it made your stomach flutter dangerously. Jack tilted his head to the side, looking at you before glancing over to Robby with a pleased nod.
The atmosphere of the sports bar buzzed around you, surprisingly less overwhelming than the restaurant you were in just an hour before.
It was familiar, a place you often went to with Frank when he needed to get out of the house. They had really good beer, and amazing soft pretzels, so it was a win win for the three of you.
The flatscreens were playing some big playoff game, people gathered around and occasionally cheering or booing. It almost made you smile, enjoying the sound of true passion coming from the patrons as they went on about the sport.
“You feeling a little better?” Robby asked, leaning a little closer so you could hear him over the loud bustle of the bar.
His arm was perched on the back of the booth you were sitting in, his thigh grazing against yours in the close proximity. You weren’t entirely sure why he decided to sit next to you instead of Jack, but you weren’t about to complain about it, especially when the scent of his cologne filled your nose every time you breathed in.
“Much better.” You replied, “I am really sorry for earlier. That was super embarrassing.” You chuckled, trying to resist the urge to make a self deprecating joke to ease the tension in your body.
“Stop apologizing.” Jack waved his hand dismissively, looking at you from over the rim of his glass. After taking a drink he placed it back on the coaster, giving both you and his boyfriend his full attention, “It’s our fault, really. We should’ve talked about it with you first.”
“It’s not your fault. Plus… you shouldn’t feel like you need to change your date plans because of me.” You shake your head, taking a sip of your second mixed drink, the taste a little more bitter than you would have liked. “It’s not fair to you guys.”
Robby seemed to move a little closer, his watch catching the light as he scratched his beard, thinking about something.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, sweetheart.” He finally said, “If we were actually upset about it, the night would’ve ended at the restaurant.”
You let his words sink in, letting it ease your remaining worry. Allowing yourself to relax a little more against the booth’s cushions, your shoulder grazing against him. You saw him glance at you in your peripheral vision, a small smile making the corners of his eyes wrinkle.
Jack leaned forward a little more, whispering to you about one of the men standing at the bar. You noted the wobble in the man’s step, his cheeks matching the red on his jersey. A wide smile spread across his face as he pointed to the television screen, beer clutched close to his chest. He was clearly blasted.
“Bet you ten dollars he trips over his own feet and gives himself a concussion.” Jack’s voice was a quiet rumble in the small space he created between the three of you, his eyes flicking from the man to you. A smirk made his lips tilt, “You up for it?”
You raised a brow, giving him a small smile, “Make it twenty and you’re on.” You counter, watching him mirror your raised brow, “Broken nose from a bar fight if his team loses.” You added, noting the way the man’s face contorted angrily as he yelled along with his other drunk friends.
“What the hell is he doin’?!” The man yelled, “Come on, pick up the damn ball!”
“Very specific. I like it.” Robby hummed, taking a sip of his whisky, “And I second the bar fight. This guy looks like he’s about to pop.”
Jack chuckled, sitting back against the booth as you all kept a watchful eye. Thankful that you weren’t sitting close to the bar, knowing you wouldn’t want to get caught in the chaos if you were correct.
The three of you continued people watching, commenting here and there on certain things, occasionally talking about the drunk guy at the bar. There was a natural flow of topics, work related, personal lives, trip ideas, your biggest dreams and worst fears. Anything that came to mind, it was said, filter effectively worn away after the third round.
Over time Robby got a little closer, his arm almost fully draped over your shoulder, his side grazing your arm every time he laughed. He would occasionally lean down to say something when it got louder in the bar, it made heat creep up your neck every time you felt his breath hit your skin. Jack had also leaned closer too, forearms braced against the table as he spoke, his hand reaching out to hold yours or Robby’s every now and then.
You were telling them about the charity you were recently working with when a yell came from the bar.
Feet scuffled against the wooden floors as the drunk guy in the red jersey threw the first punch, a man in a green jersey groaning as the fist connected with his jaw. Green Jersey quickly throws his own fist towards the subject of your bet.
Another yell rang out, blood dripping down Red Jersey’s face, his hand flying up to clutch his nose with a shocked expression.
“You jus’ broke my f-fucking nose, asshole!” He yelled, slurring his words. Red Jersey took a step forward with the intention of lunging at the other man, only to trip, his head hitting against one of the bar stools.
“Oh shit.” You whispered, looking between the two doctors before your eyes locked onto Jack’s, “Are we fucking psychics?” The seriousness in your question made both men laugh, “That was so weird.” Your voice almost sounded breathy, the alcohol affecting you more than you thought. You just shake your head, taking another sip of your drink.
The night went on nicely, conversation flowed easily, you were twenty dollars richer and ten dollars poorer… and you were absolutely staring too much at Jack’s arms.
You were listening to him talk about a recent case he had on the night shift, not going into much detail about the patient, but providing enough to give you an idea. His patient had a life threatening dislocation, one that wasn’t caught when the ambulance brought him. Jack told you the exact process on how he fixed it, how he saved this man’s life. The patient made a full recovery all because of Jack’s quick thinking.
Every now and then you asked questions of your own, to which Robby would also respond. They explained what certain medicines did, what they were usually used for. Told you about the process of emergency amputations, how nerve wracking they can be. The topic of certain illnesses came up as well, life threatening or otherwise, how they would be treated or what they can do to the body if it’s not. Necrosis, liver failure, heart disease, no rock went unturned as they continued on.
“Do you know how to check someone’s pulse?” Robby asked at one point, tilting his head to get a better look at you.
You shook your head, you were lying, allowing him to grab your wrist gently, turning it so your palm faced the ceiling.
His words were like honey as he explained, “So, you take your index and middle fingers,” His digits pressed into the fragile skin of your wrist, “Press them firmly against the skin. And slowly walk them towards the radius, just under the thumb.” His fingers dragged slowly across your wrist, leaving tingles in his wake, “Then, you’ll find it right here,” His fingers stilled, voice dipping as his thumb settled against the back of your wrist, “The radial pulse.”
Heat enveloped your face, hoping the way you smiled didn’t look too shy. The chuckle he let out only made your stomach give a violent flutter. His hand slowly let go of your wrist, reaching for his whisky.
It was extremely attractive, listening to them recount their extensive medical knowledge so casually, acting as if they didn’t sound like the smartest people in the room. And here you were, practically caged in by two of the hottest doctors you’ve ever met, feeling the happiest you’ve felt in a long time. Maybe it was the alcohol.
“Alright.” Jack clapped his hands together, rolling his shoulders and neck with a sigh, “Mini golf anyone?”
“Fuck yes.” Robby whispered, the way he said it shot right down your spine, “I am at the top of my game, baby, you’re going down.” He pointed towards his boyfriend confidently.
You nod, a smile stretching across your face, “Let’s just hope you don’t take a tumble.” You pat his bicep, giggling at the shocked look Robby gives you.
“Oh, now that’s low.” He feigned offense, placing a hand on his chest as he slid from the booth, “You wound me, sweetheart.”
Luckily the mini golf place was just down the street from the bar. Your legs felt like jelly as you walked in the middle of the two men, finding yourself falling into step with them. Jack’s hand occasionally brushed against yours, making your fingers twitch.
A big red sign with a golf ball flashed over your head, Robby’s hand coming to the middle of your back to guide you inside. The warmth from his palm soaking into the back of your dress as he walked you to the front desk, politely talking to the lady that was sitting behind it, requesting a three person entry for the whole course.
You picked out a red ball, while Robby picked a black one, and Jack picked a blue one. The three of you walked to the first hole. A windmill sat behind the hole, the course was slightly curved, a few humps along the faux grass.
“Very tame.” Jack nodded, “Should be easy enough for you, old man.” He teased his boyfriend, elbow bumping into Robby’s side before dropping the blue ball beside his foot.
“Oh yeah, laugh it up, Abbot. I’m winning tonight, just you watch.” Robby jabbed a finger in his boyfriend’s direction, a smile stretching across his cheeks.
The three of you got through the first hole easily, casual conversation floating between you as you took your turn. The red ball races across the course quickly, rolling over three humps before settling just a few inches next to the hole, a small sigh falls from your lips as you walk over to it.
“So,” Jack said your name to get your attention, “You seeing anyone these days?” The question made your movements stutter for a moment, the ball stopping at the edge of the hole.
“Don’t distract me, Jack.” You said instead of answering his question, hitting the ball for a third time and hearing it hit against the plastic walls of the hole.
Robby was next, dropping his ball onto the green surface. He bends slightly as he eyed the course in front of him, as if he could predict where the ball would go. The black ball rolls across the course the same as yours did, stopping much closer.
“Are you?” Robby speaks up, watching your face twist with confusion, “Seeing anyone?”
A small laugh comes from you, not sure if you wanted to embarrass yourself for a second time tonight. The alcohol you drank earlier in the night was still buzzing through your system, but not enough to lay out the baggage of your dry romantic life. Barely able to remember the last time you even went on a date. .
“Uh, no.” You shake your head, eyes dipping towards the ground.
“What about that one guy?” Jack asked, dropping his ball on the faux grass, “Chris? Or something like that.”
You grimaced at the name, shaking your head with a displeased sound at the mention of the man.
Chris was a guy you met at the coffee shop, he seemed fine when you first started talking. He was talkative, maybe a little too much, but he was polite enough at first. But he turned out to be disgusting, pictures of his apartment being enough to scare you away. That, and he was just boring. Very one dimensional. All about himself.
“Not my type.” You said, “Felt like I was talking to a flimsy piece of paper.”
“His loss.” Robby shrugged, smiling at you. His words made your face heat up, a shy smile curving your lips. Jack hummed in agreement as he walked back up with his golf ball in hand.
Robby was in the lead by the fifth hole, which surprised both Jack and you. To the point where he claimed Robby was cheating. Saying that he had never been this good at mini golf throughout the entirety of their relationship.
The winning attendant strolled up after getting his ball in the hole after the second try, placing his putter over his shoulders with a sly smirk on his face.
“I think you’re my good luck charm, sweetheart.” He said cockily, giving you a wink before walking to stand beside Jack.
A soft chuckle came from you, “No, I just think you’re showing off.” You tease, making the man smile.
Your eyelids were beginning to droop by the time you got to the final course, a yawn coming from you every now and then.
“Getting tired?” The taller man asked, placing a hand on the middle of your back.
“A little. I don’t know how you guys are still standing.” Your words made Robby chuckle.
“Years of practice.” He shrugged, “We’ll take you home once I wipe the floor with the two of you.” His joke made you smile, feeling your body melt against his palm.
The walk back to the sports bar was slow, like you were trying to drag out your time together. Wishing you could bottle up this moment forever and keep it safe.
You couldn’t help but smile to yourself, feeling more relaxed than you have in months. The hum of passing cars and conversing strangers filled the peaceful silence that settled between the three of you.
Robby’s hand was still on your back, thumb tracing light patterns against the fabric of your dress as he guided you along the busy sidewalk. It made your skin tingle, the warmth spreading through your body when you were forced to take a step closer to him.
Jack was on your other side, the back of his hand brushing into yours, almost tempting you to grab ahold of it in a sudden rush of boldness. But you didn’t do that, you couldn’t, because that would be weird.
Once you got to the bar’s parking lot, a sadness filled your chest. You wished the night didn’t have to end so soon, even with how horribly it had started. The embarrassment you felt hours ago now gone, replaced with longing, and a twinge of loneliness. Because unlike them, you didn’t have someone to come home to. Just a cat and your television.
You stopped just beside your car, a loud yawn crawling from your mouth. Your eyes water as the sleepiness truly starts to set in.
“Let me drive you home.” Robby said after a beat.
“But my car…” You trailed off, looking at the blue Honda in question.
“I’ll drive it, Jack can drive behind us.” He shrugged, his offer hanging between the two of you, “I don’t want you falling asleep behind the wheel.”
It didn’t take you long to respond, another yawn making you reconsider rejecting his offer. He was right, and luckily for you, there was no guilt that made your stomach sink. Instead, your heart seemed to flutter at his consideration, at the fact that they cared enough to make sure you got home in one piece.
Your keys jingled as you handed them to the man, watching him flip over some of your keychains as he walked to the driver’s side of the car. Jack walked up next to him, placing a hand on his boyfriend's waist before whispering something you couldn’t quite hear. His eyes found yours when he stepped away from Robby, tilting his head slightly with a smile.
“I’ll be right behind you guys.” He said, walking around his truck and getting inside.
Robby walked over to the passenger's side of your car, opening the door carefully and motioning for you to get in, “After you, my dear.”
You couldn’t help but shake your head, laughing quietly, “Why thank you, kind sir.” You reply playfully, sitting down on the seat and adjusting it to lean back a little. You were not used to being on this side in your own car. It was a strange, but welcome feeling.
Robby got in soon after, adjusting your mirrors and seat to his liking. You couldn’t even find it in yourself to be annoyed by that, not when it was him doing it.
The radio played quietly, filling the space between the two of you as he drove, fingers tapping on your steering wheel. He seemed so relaxed, so at peace even after the stress filled day he no doubt had. His other arm rests on the center console, fingers fiddling with a pen that was sitting in the cupholder.
“I love this song.” Robby muttered, turning up the volume. He hummed quietly along to the lyrics of ‘Long Cool Woman’ by The Hollies, glancing over to make sure you hadn’t fallen asleep on him.
“Sorry again for earlier tonight.” Robby said after the song ended, brave enough to break the silence, “It was my idea. I just wanted to…” He trailed off, chuckling quietly, “Shit.” He whispered quietly, shaking his head to himself.
“Wanted to… what?” You asked, curiosity swirling in your head as you tried to urge him to continue.
“We wanted to make you feel special.” Robby said it so quietly you almost didn’t hear him, his voice taking on a nervous edge. He shot you a small smile, “You matter to us, we wanted to show you that.”
“Oh…” You trailed off, unsure how to respond. You felt both confused and flattered.
The fact that they would go out of their way like that for a friend made your heart clench, they were so sweet. And for a second bitterness reared its ugly head, realizing you truly would never find a partner that cared about you nearly as much as they did. Nobody who would know you as well as they did, someone as accommodating. It made you sad, selfishly wishing you were chosen.
God I’m so pathetic. You thought internally, having to suppress the groan that wanted to come out.
Sooner or later you had to move on, knowing deep down that you would never truly be happy like this. Jack and Robby found their person, and it was about time you did the same.
“Can I ask you something a little weird?” Robby speaks again, glancing over towards you for a second.
“Hm..?” You hummed, looking at the side of his face, watching him focus on the road.
“What’s your opinion on polyamorous relationships?” He asks, making you raise a brow. Where was this coming from?
You considered your answer for a second, trying to reel in your logical thoughts.
The last thing you wanted to do was accidentally expose your secret, that you’ve thought about that sort of dynamic multiple times throughout your friendship with Jack and him. You weren’t sure you would be able to recover from that sort of embarrassment.
“Why?” Was all you could say, not trusting your own voice.
Robby just shrugged, “Had this throuple come in last week, made me reconsider some things.” He responded casually, “In the past I guess I just saw it as cheating, or some weird religious thing. But… I don’t know, seeing how they interacted with each other was really sweet.” A small smile made his eyes crinkle, “Kinda made me rethink how closed minded I’ve been about those types of relationships.”
“Really?” You ask curiously, watching him nod, “I…” The words caught in your throat, your brain carefully rearranging so you didn’t embarrass yourself, “I’ve considered them… if I’m being honest.” The surprised look Robby gave made your stomach flip, “Like, boundaries would need to be set, conversations had. But if you truly love each other, then I don’t see an issue with it.”
The man beside you doesn’t respond, merely nods along to your words, his thumbs continuing to tap on your steering wheel to the rhythm of the music.
Minutes passed before Robby was pulling into the driveway of your duplex, a small sigh falling from his lips before he glanced over to you.
“We’re here.” He announced, almost sounding disappointed.
The wind swept into the car when you opened your door, the sudden chill making you shiver. You stepped out, stretching your arms over your head with yet another yawn.
Robby walked around the car and stopped next to you, watching Jack walk up the driveway towards the two of you.
“I had fun tonight.” You tell them, watching Jack’s shoulders relax slightly, “Thanks for letting me third wheel with you guys.” Feeling awkward when your small laugh isn’t reciprocated, your smile turning tight lipped almost immediately.
Jack exchanged a look with his boyfriend before he straightened his back slightly, head bowing for a second as if he was preparing himself for something.
For a second your mind went to the worst; they were moving, someone was dying, they didn’t want to speak to you anymore. Every possible bad thing filtered through your mind before he finally spoke.
The man behind you leaned against your car, crossing his arms as he looked at his boyfriend expectantly.
“We have… something to tell you.” Jack started, the nervousness in his tone making you raise a brow, “And I’m going to try my best not to scare you away, so just stick with me for a second, alright?”
What the hell was happening? You thought to yourself.
“Okay..?” You dragged the word cautiously, fiddling with your fingers as a way to distract yourself from the anxiety that was beginning to bubble up in your chest.
The night shift attending shifted a little, looking at you with soft eyes before speaking, “Over the last few months, Robby and I started to… realize something.” He paused, carefully figuring out what to say next, his evasiveness of the topic at hand making you nervous.
“You don’t have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable.” You finally said, noticing his hesitation to continue.
A heavy sigh comes from Jack before finally he says, “We have feelings for you.”
Your breath caught in your throat, the air suddenly stilling around you completely as his words sank in. It felt like your heart was about to beat out of your chest, eyes wide as you averted your gaze anywhere but him, heat consuming your face in an instant. You had to be dreaming.
Before you could catch it a small, disbelieving laugh came from you, “Are you fucking with me?” You asked, looking between the two of them for any hints of a growing smile, only to find worry instead.
A tense silence settled over you, feeling dizzy as they exchanged yet another look. Fear suddenly flashed through you, briefly wondering if Frank spilled the beans to his attending. What if this was some elaborate test to get the truth out of you? They would make you the laughing stock of the ED.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that I just-” You stumbled over your words, not knowing where to look.
“We’re not fucking with you.” Robby finally spoke up, making you look at him, sincerity swimming in his eyes, “Promise.”
Your mind was racing, trying to see what you could have possibly missed in these last few months.
Then something slowly started to click.
The lingering touches, most of the time when it wasn’t even needed. Like Robby putting his hands on your shoulders to steer you around museums. Jack’s hand grazing yours when you were walking side by side to the diner. Robby’s hand on your back when he spoke to you at the ED’s front desk. The small reassuring touches when you were a patient, keeping you tethered to the ground with physical comfort.
That much touching could be normal between friends, but it always felt like it meant something with them. Like there was intention behind what they did.
Then it was the pet names, something that came out of nowhere months ago. You had all but brushed it off as them just being friendly, but as you continued to dwell on it things started to get clearer.
Robby’s unprompted question in the car came surging back as well, realization finally dawning on you, settling deep in your skin.
There was no way this was actually happening. You tried to wrap your head around it, finding yourself at a loss for words.
“I-” Your face twisted as you drew in a shaky breath, “How long have you..?” The words caught in your throat, unable to say them outloud.
“Like I said, a few months.” Jack said, rubbing the back of his neck before tucking his hands in the front pockets of his pants, “But I think we’ve felt like this for a lot longer than that.” He sounded so sure, leaving little room for doubt.
Finally, you raise your head, his eyes already on you. A small smile played at the corners of his mouth, looking like he was expecting you to just walk away.
“We understand if you don’t feel the same.” Robby added.
You couldn’t help but let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh. Maybe your life is finally turning around.
The car rocked as you leaned on it beside Robby, their words replaying in your head a few times. You never thought this would happen, never thought you would be lucky enough for this to happen. And yet, here you were, standing between the two men you loved, their confession hanging heavily above your head.
“Holy shit.” You whispered letting out another breathy laugh, nervously rubbing your hand up and down your arm, “I uh- shit.” Just fucking say it, “I have something to tell you guys, too.”
“And what would that be, sweetheart?” Robby asked sweetly, the pet name making your brain short circuit.
Here it goes.
“Okay… Don’t laugh but…” You clench your eyes shut, “I’ve had a huge crush on the both of you for like… two years now.” Your voice quieted towards the end, scared to even say the amount of time out loud, the word ‘crush’ making you feel like a nervous teenager.
A sigh came from Jack, his shoulders sagging before briefly bowing his head. A smile stretched across his face as he took in this information, looking towards Robby, who seemed to relax as well.
“Well that’s a relief.” Jack chuckled, walking a little closer, “Because this would’ve been really awkward if Langdon was lying.”
Your eyes widen, mouth opening in your shock. You were going to fucking kill him. After thanking him, of course.
A smirk made Jack’s lips tilt, his hand reaching out for yours. You allowed him to guide you closer, your chests almost touching as he looked at you. His other hand came up, fingertips ghosting over the skin of your cheek before settling on your jaw.
“You’re not fucking with us,” He repeated your earlier words, something flashing in his eyes, “Are you?” His voice softened, making you feel like you could float away if it wasn’t for his hands anchoring you to the ground.
The response you wanted to give died on your lips, your body working faster than your brain. Your hand came up to settle on his cheek, easily drawing him closer, his breath tickled against your skin before he leaned in.
His lips were like velvet against yours, moving in an unfamiliar but perfect rhythm. The hand that was holding yours came up to settle on your waist, bringing you closer as he tilted your head back, his thumb resting underneath your chin.
Just when you felt his tongue brush against your bottom lip, another hand came into the mix, warmth enveloping your back as Robby walked closer.
His head tilted down, kissing your hair before you felt his breath next to your ear, “I lied earlier.” His words made you falter against Jack, “You were the reason I started to reconsider my perception of relationships.” A soft, unexpected whimper muffled against Jack’s lips.
You step back from Jack, your eyes fluttering open as your back softly collides with Robby. Slowly, you turn, looking into his dark eyes, and tears blur your vision. This time for a good reason.
“You okay, baby?” The man asks softly, his hand coming up to rest on your cheek like Jack had done. The new pet name made your stomach jump, your breath catching in your throat as he brought himself closer, “Is it alright if I have a turn?”
“Just kiss me, Michael.” You whispered.
His beard was surprisingly soft against your skin, not rough like you previously assumed it would be. His lips were equally as soft as Jack’s, but something about the way he kissed was more searing, hungrier. It made you feel lightheaded in the best way possible, your legs feeling weak as his lips moved against yours confidently.
He brought you closer, taking charge as his teeth brushed against your bottom lip. A soft sound came from him when your nails scratched against the back of his neck, his hold on your waist tightening.
“Fuck.” Robby whispered quietly when you disconnected, forehead resting against yours, his eyes slipping closed. Your fingers fiddled with his tie, a small smile curving your lips.
Jack’s hands came up to rest over Robby’s on your waist, his warmth pushing away the shiver that threatened to rake through your body.
“Two years, huh?” Robby asked after a beat, a small chuckle coming from him when he felt you nod against his forehead, “Jesus, am I really that clueless?”
You couldn’t help but let out a small humored huff, “Don’t think I can answer that for you.”
The man behind you rested his chin on your shoulder, “He absolutely is.” Jack teased, looking at Robby, “Took Mike at least eight months to realize I was flirting with him.”
“It was not eight months.” Robby scoffed, his thumb tracing lazy patterns on your waist.
Jack merely chuckled in response, shaking his head softly against the skin of your shoulder.
Out of all possible outcomes, this was not how you thought your night would end. Standing in your driveway, sandwiched between the two men you’ve been pining after for so long.
Just hours ago you were preparing yourself to give up, wanting to spare yourself the heartbreak of rejection. Knowing that things would eventually go your way if you let it, even if it meant losing them in the process.
For once, though, life thankfully decided to give you a much needed break. A massive weight falling from your shoulders and into the hands of these two men, relieving you of the strain. The happiness you felt was almost as overwhelming as your sadness, all consuming, making your heart pound against your ribcage.
A wet sounding laugh filtered between the three of you, your eyes pooling with unshed tears as you let the situation fully sink in. The feeling of their lips still lingered on yours, leaving behind a pleasant tingle, and a craving for more.
When did your luck start to change?
Robby’s hands slowly dropped from your waist, grabbing onto your hands instead.
“Let’s get you inside.” He said softly, guiding you towards the front door of your home.
Jack followed closely, stopping when you did. You turned away from the door so you could look at them, nervousness twisted in your chest, “I have a king sized bed by the way.” You forced out the words before you could chicken out, heat blooming in your cheeks.
“Oh?” Robby’s brows shot up, looking at his boyfriend, “Is that so?”
You nod, taking a deep breath, “I’m not… implying anything by saying that, I just-” You pause, swallowing around the lump in your throat, “I don’t want you guys to go just yet… if that’s okay.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Jack smiled, stepping a little closer and placing a sweet kiss on your forehead, “If you want us to stay, then we will.”
Your bedroom was cast in a soft yellow glow thanks to the tea lights and the lamp on your side tables. Long shadows were cast along your walls as both men walked around, taking in their surroundings curiously.
Jack was looking at your shelves, eyes flickering over your small collections and knick-knacks, before reading the spines of your books. Robby took his time admiring the many pictures you had pinned on your bulletin board above your computer, knowing how much you cherished your photography hobby.
The Jack’s eyes examined the plaques hanging above your bed, each one coming from the various charity organizations you’ve worked with over the years. It was your own personal way of helping out the community, wanting to do meaningful work like Dana did.
That was what brought you real joy, not the stupid retail job you were stuck at.
You kicked off your shoes, allowing them to continue exploring as you slipped out of the room to change into your pajamas.
The bathroom door clicked quietly behind you, your eyes locking onto your reflection almost immediately. The exhaustion that always greeted you wasn’t there this time, instead it was replaced by something deeper, unexplainable.
The handle on your sink creaked quietly before rushing to life. The water was cold against your warm skin, making you sigh before cupping your hands and wetting your face, attempting to shake the girlish nervousness at the idea of two extremely attractive men wandering around your bedroom.
“Holy shit.” You whisper, unable to resist the smile that crawled onto your face.
Once you were finally changed, and your teeth were brushed, you emerged from the bathroom, padding back over to your bedroom. You pushed the door open, words dying on your lips when you saw what both men were getting up to in your absence.
Robby was sitting on the edge of your bed, hands perched on Jack’s hips, who stood between his boyfriend’s spread legs. Jack’s hands were holding Robby’s face as they kissed, fingers threading through his hair and scratching along the man’s scalp.
They pulled back from each other when the floorboard creaked under your foot, stepping closer.
“Come here, baby.” Jack said softly, his voice holding a light rasp.
You did so gladly, walking over and allowing him to wrap and arm around your waist. He pressed his lips to the side of your head, a yawn of his own making his forehead drop against your shoulder.
“Fuck, I’m exhausted.”
Both men shed their pants while you dug through some of your old shirts, pulling out two that would most likely fit them. You couldn't remember when or where you got them, you were just glad you did, knowing neither of them would be comfortable sleeping in the button ups they wore.
After a few minutes passed you slid onto the bed, settling yourself in the middle.
Your hand pat against the pillows in a feeble attempt to fluff them before either man slid onto the bed, Robby on your right, Jack on your left.
You were the first to sink into the sheets, your head settling on the pillow comfortably as you flipped to your side, facing Robby. Jack laid down behind you, his arm sliding around your waist and pulling you closer. He propped up on his elbow so he could get a better look at you.
His lips were just as soft as before when he kissed you, it was soft and slow, savoring you. His fingers traced along your jaw, pulling you closer, guiding you.
Robby laid down in front of you, watching as his boyfriend coaxed small pleased sounds from your mouth. His own hand settled on your waist just above Jack’s, “My turn.” He whispered low, allowing Jack the time to pull away before he brought you in.
He was softer this time, slow, with a lingering firmness that made you press closer to him. Your nails scratched across his beard, making him blow out a content sigh through his nose.
“Get some sleep, sweetheart.” Robby whispered in the minimal space you had after separating, his nose brushing against yours gently. “I have work in the morning, but I’ll wake you up before I leave. Sound good?”
All you could do was nod, already feeling your eyelids grow heavy. Jack cuddled up closer, his chest pressing to your back, lips leaving light kisses along your neck. Your head was laying on Robby’s shoulder, his arm tucked under your pillow.
Their warmth enveloped you in a comforting way, making you feel safe as your breathing evened out, your dreams finally pulling you under.
And for once, you didn’t dread the thought of waking up in the morning, no longer fearful of what life had in store for you.
Summary: When you moved halfway across the world to work nights at PTMC, the last thing you expected was for your soulmate string to lead straight to Dr. Jack Abbot—who’s already happily married to his own soulmate. So you bury your feelings beneath friendship, trauma shifts, and years of silence… until tragedy changes everything, and both of you begin to realize that maybe soulmates were never about fate, but choice. Or, the Soulmate AU with Jack Abbot.
Pairing: Jack Abbot x FilipinaNurseFem!Reader (Can still be read by anyone! It’s not super specific)
Warnings: 18+ Soulmate String AU, Unrequited Love to Requited Love, Age-Gap Romance (Not Specified), Hospitals, ER, ANGST, Fluff, Crush, Blood, Friends-to-Lovers, Slow(ish) Burn, Eventual Hurt-to-Comfort, Longing, YEARNING, Major Character Death, The Pitt AU, Grief, Tragic Heroine, Tragic Hero, Widow!Abbot, Depressed!Abbot, Anger, Crying, GSW, Happily Ever After, COVID-19, Kissing,
Word Count: 22.5k
A/N: We're gonna take a break from Ducky and Robby for a bit. Welcome, Jack Abbot. You are in my domain now >:D ALSO, I HIT THE LIMIT ON SPACING SOOO THE FORMAT MIGHT BE FUCKED IDK. Sorry :(((
Side note: Gif in the moodboard from @/keeryscupid. I’m not a doctor or a nurse. I’m dyslexic, and English isn’t my first language! So I apologize in advance for the spelling and/or grammatical errors. As always, reblogs, comments, and likes are appreciated. Thank you and happy reading!
Songs: Orbiter by Noah Kahan, Brush Fire by Gracie Abrams, and If You Let Me by Maisie Peters (with Marcus Mumford)
| Jack Abbot Masterlist | Main Masterlist |
2018
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT
The first thing you notice about the Pitt isn’t the noise.
It’s the pace.
Everything moves fast, but no one looks rushed. People pass each other like they’ve done this a thousand times, sliding through narrow spaces without looking, voices overlapping in half-finished sentences, monitors beeping in uneven rhythms that somehow don’t throw anyone off.
Organized disaster is exactly what an emergency department should feel like. You tighten your grip on the strap of your bag as you follow Lena down the hall, trying not to stare at everything like it’s your first day on Earth.
New country, New hospital, New job.
Night shift.
Your body still hasn’t figured out what time zone it’s supposed to be in, but adrenaline is already kicking in, that familiar hum under your skin that always comes when you step into an ER. You tell yourself you’ve handled worse. That you’ve worked typhoon nights, mass casualty drills, and overcrowded government hospitals with half the supplies you needed.
You can handle this.
Lena pushes the double doors open with her shoulder, not even breaking stride. “ER’s through here,” she says. “You said you worked trauma before, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” you answer automatically.
She glances back at you immediately, “Drop the ma’am. You’ll make everyone feel old.”
Heat creeps up your neck, “Sorry. Habit.”
“You’ll fit in,” she mutters, half amused, half distracted as she scans the room.
You step through the doors behind her—and the sound hits all at once. Phones ringing, a monitor alarming somewhere in the back, sharp and insistent. A patient down the hall is yelling that he’s been waiting for three hours and he’s going to sue somebody.
It’s loud and crowded, but very alive and all too familiar. Your shoulders drop just a little, tension you didn’t realize you were holding easing out of your spine.
Lena stops near the central desk, scanning the board, then jerks her chin toward the far side of the room, “That’s Dr. Jack Abbot. He’s on trauma tonight, so you’ll probably be with him most of the shift.”
You follow her gaze without thinking.
He stands near the counter, scrolling through a chart on an iPad, stethoscope hanging loose around his neck like he forgot it was there. Curly salt and pepper hair slightly messy, the kind of tired that comes from too many night shifts in a row.
He looks up when someone calls his name, and the moment your eyes land on him, your wrist burns.
You suck in a small breath, instinctively looking down. There’s a red string looped around your wrist, thin, bright, and impossible to miss.
Your stomach drops so fast it makes you dizzy. Because what the actual fuck? No. Not here. Not now.
At some point, you’d convinced yourself maybe you simply didn’t have one. Maybe the universe skipped you.
The thread pulls slightly, like something on the other end just moved, and your fingers curl around it before you even realize what you’re doing. A voice in your head tells you not to look… but you look anyway. The string stretches across the room, weaving through people and stretchers and equipment like it doesn’t care about physics; it never has.
Your breath gets stuck in your throat as you follow it as it leads straight to him—Jack Abbot.
Your heart stutters hard enough that you feel it in your ears.
No.
No, no, no.
Lena is still talking beside you, something about assignments, but the words blur together. “…good with procedures, just don’t let him skip charting, he tries— Abbot!”
He looks up again, this time, at you. The string pulls tight between your wrists. For a second, neither of you moves. Then he walks over, casual, pumping sanitizer on his hands like this is just another shift, just another new nurse, nothing important happening at all.
He’s taller up close.
Tired-looking in a way that somehow makes him seem softer instead of intimidating. Curly salt-and-pepper hair slightly messy, sleeves rolled to his elbows, stethoscope hanging around his neck like he forgot it was there hours ago.
“You the new one?” he asks. His voice is warm and easy. Maybe a little rough around the edges from too much coffee and too many overnight shifts.
You force your brain to function.
“Yeah,” you manage. “First night.”
He nods once, then holds out his hand.
“Jack Abbot.”
Your hand hesitates for half a second before you take it. The second your skin touches his—the string snaps tight. It feels like something deep in your bones clicks violently into place.
Your pulse jumps hard beneath your skin, and for one horrifying second you think maybe he can feel it too.
But Jack just smiles politely, completely unaffected.
Because he can’t see it, not fully. The thread only loops faintly around his wrist before disappearing, incomplete and one-sided.
You swallow hard, “Nice to meet you.”
“Welcome to the Pitt,” he says. “Try not to run.” You let out a shaky laugh before you can stop yourself, “Too late for that.”
A faint smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, like he likes your answer. By God, that tiny expression alone nearly kills you.
Then he shifts the iPad under his arm—and you see the ring.
A silver band on his left hand.
Your entire body goes cold.
For a second, you genuinely can’t process what you’re looking at. Of course, he’s married. Because, yes, the universe would do something this cruel.
You force yourself to look away before your face gives you away—and that’s when you notice her.
A woman stands near Central holding a paper bag against her hip, looking around the department with the comfortable familiarity of someone who’s been here a hundred times before.
Waiting for him.
Jack notices her immediately, and his whole face changes. It softens enough for you to understand instantly how much he loves her. “Hey,” he says quietly, already walking toward her.
The incomplete thread around his wrist brightens faintly.
She smiles the second he reaches her, “You forgot dinner again.” Jack laughs softly, taking the bag from her, “I was busy.”
“You’re always busy.”
“Occupational hazard.”
She rolls her eyes affectionately, and he leans down automatically to kiss her cheek. It’s absent-minded and natural. The kind of intimacy built over years. Loving her is as easy as breathing. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist feels unbearably tight. Because the universe already chose—it’s not you. Never you.
Lena nudges your shoulder lightly, “You good?”
You blink quickly, forcing your expression back under control before anyone notices the way your soul feels like it’s collapsing inward. “Yeah,” you say, your voice almost sounds steady. “Just jet lag.”
Lena nods distractedly and turns back toward the board.
Across the room, Jack says something under his breath that makes his wife laugh. The warm and happy sound carries across the department.
You look down at the string around your wrist one last time before pulling your sleeve over it completely.
You can do this—you’ve survived harder things than heartbreak.
You square your shoulders, take the iPad Lena hands you, and step fully into the chaos of the Pitt.
So when Jack glances back at you a moment later, smiling like you’re just another coworker starting a shift, you smile back, pretending that your heart didn’t just fall through the floor.
A FEW MONTHS LATER…
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT SHIFT
By the time the Pitt starts feeling familiar, it’s already too late. You know the rhythm of the department now, the same way you know your own breathing. Which monitor is about to alarm before it starts screaming. Which psych patient is one bad interaction away from throwing a urinal at security, or a resident is about to panic during a difficult intubation.
You know the trauma bay doors stick when it rains, and Lena hides the good coffee above the Pyxis because Ellis steals the decent stuff first, and the fluorescent lights over Hallway C flicker around three in the morning like they’re barely holding on, and you know Jack Abbot’s footsteps before you even see him.
Well, to be honest, that part happens slowly. Shift after shift. Trauma after trauma. Somewhere between your first week and your third month, working beside him stops feeling intimidating and starts feeling natural.
You know how he likes his trauma setups organized. You know he taps his pen twice against the desk when he’s thinking too hard. You know he rubs the back of his neck when he’s exhausted and trying not to show it. And worse—he knows you too.
“Lifeline!” Ellis’ voice cuts across the department as you walk out of Trauma Two carrying an empty suture tray. You stop mid-step. “You people are never letting that nickname die, are you?”
Ellis swivels around in her chair with a grin. “Absolutely not.”
The nickname started during your second week after a pediatric code that had gone catastrophically wrong.
A seven-year-old nearly drowned—no pulse on arrival. The room had dissolved into controlled chaos within seconds—respiratory trying to secure the airway while one of the newer residents nearly froze trying to place an IO line.
Shen, still early enough into residency that panic sometimes beat experience, had looked one second away from completely spiraling.
But through all of it, you had stayed calm.
You’d guided Shen through the tibial IO placement while simultaneously pushing epinephrine prep toward Jack and coordinating compression rotations so nobody burned out too early.
At one point, Ellis had looked up from the monitor and muttered, “Jesus Christ. She’s everybody’s lifeline in here.”
Unfortunately for you, the name stuck. Now, half the ED used it more than your actual name.
“Lifeline, Trauma Two,” Lena calls without looking up from the board.
“On my way.”
Jack steps out of the trauma bay at the same time you do, peeling bloody gloves off his hands. “You steal my nurse again?” he asks Lena.
Lena snorts. “You don’t own her, Abbot.”
“That’s not what I said.”
There’s something easy in the exchange that makes warmth spread unexpectedly through you.
Jack falls into step beside you automatically as you head toward Trauma Two.
“You eat yet?” he asks.
You glance at him suspiciously. “Are you asking because you care or because you need me conscious enough to survive this shift?”
“A little of both.”
You huff out a laugh. Because that’s the problem with Jack. He’s kind in ways that sneak up on you, a quiet attentiveness that drives you nuts. He notices when you haven’t sat down in seven hours or when your hands shake after a bad pediatric trauma and when you’re pushing yourself too hard, and casually hands you a granola bar like he didn’t specifically go looking for one because he knew you skipped dinner.
The kind of doctor who stays with family members after delivering bad news instead of disappearing the second the conversation gets uncomfortable, and the kind of man who wears his wedding ring like it means something sacred.
Which somehow makes all of this hurt even more. Because every soft look. Every quiet joke at three in the morning or moment beside him in a trauma bay—belongs to someone else.
And you know that.
The universe reminds you every single day that the red string hidden beneath the cuff of your scrub jacket pulls tight whenever he gets too close.
You’ve gotten good at ignoring it or pretending to.
TRAUMA ONE — NIGHT
Tonight’s MVA is a disaster. Twenty-six-year-old male. Ejected through the windshield. Hypotensive on arrival. The second EMS wheels him through the ambulance bay doors, and the department shifts gears instantly.
“BP seventy over forty,” Ellis says from the monitor. “Heart rate one-forty.”
“Breath sounds diminished on the left,” Shen adds quickly, trying to keep up.
“Alright, let’s move,” Jack says sharply.
You’re already there.
Trauma shears cut through blood-soaked clothing while respiratory preps for intubation. You place oxygen and start hanging fluids while Jack performs the FAST exam. Free fluid in Morrison’s pouch appears on the screen almost immediately. Internal bleeding, most likely splenic rupture.
“Call OR,” Jack says. “He’s going upstairs.”
“Already on it,” you answer, grabbing the phone before he even finishes speaking. Jack glances toward you over the patient. There’s blood smeared across the sleeve of his scrub top, exhaustion pulled deep into the lines around his eyes. Yet still—that small flicker of trust when he looks at you. He knows you’ll catch whatever he misses.
You hate how much that matters to you.
CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT
By four in the morning, the Pitt settles into its strange version of quiet. You’re charting near Central when the elevator doors open.
Jack’s wife walks out carrying six pizza boxes stacked in her arms.
The entire department visibly brightens.
“Oh thank God,” Ellis says dramatically. “An angel sent from heaven.”
“You people are unbelievable,” she laughs.
Ellis immediately takes two boxes from her. “Respectfully, I would die for you.”
“That’s deeply concerning,” Lena mutters.
“You’re just jealous she likes me more.”
“I absolutely am not.”
You can’t help laughing softly under your breath. There it is again— that awful ache in your heart. Because she’s truly, genuinely wonderful. The universe could’ve at least made her cold, cruel, or difficult.
Instead, she remembers everyone’s coffee orders and asks about your family back home, and brings food for the night shift because she knows none of you remember to eat unless somebody forces you.
“You must be Lifeline.”
You blink, startled when you realize she’s suddenly standing beside you.
Up close, her smile is warm and effortless. You force yourself to smile back. “That obvious, huh?”
“Oh, very,” she says easily. “Jack talks about you all the time.”
Your heart stumbles painfully against your ribs.
Before you can recover, she continues casually, “Apparently, you’re the only reason this department functions after midnight.”
You laugh weakly. “That gives me way too much credit. Obviously, Lena holds everything down.”
“Have you met these people?” she asks quietly, glancing around Central. “I’m pretty sure Shen would eat expired yogurt if left unsupervised.”
“That happened one time,” Shen shouts.
“You were hallucinating by hour two,” Ellis replies.
You laugh again before you can stop yourself, and somehow, talking to her is easy. Isn’t that cruel? Because you like her immediately, she asks about the Philippines, about your family, and how you plan on surviving Pittsburgh winters.
You’re halfway through explaining that black ice feels like a personal attack when Jack walks out of Trauma Two. He tosses his gloves into the biohazard bin before sanitizing his hands automatically. His curls are damp with sweat at the temples now, scrub top wrinkled from the shift.
Then he looks up to find the two of you talking and smiles—soft around the edges in a way that makes your eyes water.
“Well,” his wife says immediately, “there he is.”
Jack points toward the pizza boxes. “You bribing my staff again?”
“Your staff?” Lena repeats flatly from across the desk.
Jack ignores her completely.
His wife gestures toward you. “Lifeline and I decided you’re actually the problem in this department.” You blink. “We did?”
“We did now.”
Jack looks genuinely betrayed, “That was fast.”
“She’s nice,” his wife says simply. Jack’s eyes flick toward you for half a second, warm and amused. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “She is.”
Your pulse skips hard enough you nearly miss it. Coward, coward, coward.
You look away first while his wife grins triumphantly. “See? I win.”
“You gang up on me constantly.”
“Because you’re easy to bully,” you say before thinking.
Jack stares at you in mock offense. “Wow. Okay.”
“You walked into that one,” Ellis says.
“You’re all terrible people.”
His wife reaches up automatically to straighten the collar of his scrub shirt. Such a small gesture, absent-minded and intimate. The kind of touch that only exists between people who know each other completely.
Your wrist aches beneath your sleeve as the string pulls tighter. Still connected to him. So very impossible and still wrong. But somehow, standing there laughing with both of them at four in the morning, you realize something infinitely more dangerous than loving him.
You’re becoming part of their lives.
CENTRAL WORK AREA — LATER
The shift slows near dawn as you’re charting near Central when Jack drops into the chair beside you with a tired exhale.
“You ever think about leaving emergency medicine?” he asks suddenly. You glance sideways. “Every shift.”
“That’s healthy.”
“I think about becoming a florist at least twice a week.”
Jack huffs out a tired laugh. “You’d last six days.”
“Rude.”
“You yelled at a surgeon yesterday.”
“He was wrong.” You pointed out.
“He was technically right.”
“He was spiritually wrong.”
That earns a real laugh from him, the low and warm kind. God. You hold onto sounds like that more than you should. Silence settles comfortably between you afterward—the kind that only exists between people who know each other well. Then, almost absentmindedly, Jack asks, “Have you met your soulmate yet?”
Your fingers stop over the keyboard. For one horrible second, your entire body forgets how to function. But your face stays calm, because years in emergency medicine have made you terrifyingly good at composure. You keep typing as you reply, “Nope.”
Jack glances sideways at you. “At all?” You shrug lightly, forcing your voice steady. “Might just not be in the cards for me.”
Something softens in his expression immediately. Jack looks at people like he wants to understand them, not fix them. “I doubt that,” he says quietly. You stare at the chart on the screen because looking at him feels too dangerous. The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly heavy.
“I mean it,” he continues softly. “Whoever ends up with you is gonna be lucky.”
Your throat tightens painfully as you force a laugh under your breath before the emotion can show on your face. “Smooth.”
“I’m serious.”
The worst part is—he means it. You finally risk looking at him. His eyes are tired and honest in that devastating way that makes lying to him feel terrible.
“I hope whoever you love…” he says quietly, almost like he’s thinking out loud, “loves you back just as much.”
The cruel irony nearly splits you open. Because you already know exactly what loving him feels like. It feels like swallowing it down every single day, pretending friendship is enough because it has to be, while standing three feet away from your soulmate, while he talks about his wife with soft eyes and absolute devotion.
Your eyes sting suddenly, and you blink hard before he notices. “Me too, Jack,” you whisper. You mean it so much it hurts.
“Me too.”
2020, COVID PANDEMIC
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT
The world changes fast. One week, people are joking about a virus overseas between trauma calls and coffee runs, and then the next week, the Pitt is overflowing.
Then, suddenly, every hallway smells like bleach and sanitizer, strong enough to burn your nose through the mask. Every shift feels like drowning—N95s cutting grooves into your skin, face shields fogging every time you breathe, and isolation gowns crackling every time you move.
The emergency department transforms into something unrecognizable almost overnight. There are no visitors or waiting rooms full of family. Alarms, intubations, oxygen sats dropping, and the sound of ventilators become part of the background noise of your life. Everyone starts looking exhausted, and then everyone starts looking haunted. You stop recognizing your coworkers without PPE. Even you stop recognizing yourself.
Through all of it, Jack keeps working.
You think maybe the entire world could collapse around him and he’d still show up for trauma shift fifteen minutes early with coffee in one hand and exhaustion carved into his face. Some nights, the two of you barely talk beyond patient updates. There isn’t time. Not anymore. Every room is full, and the waiting room looks like a war zone; people are dying faster than you can process. But even through the masks and face shields and layers of plastic, you still know him.
You know the crease between his brows when he’s worried and the exhaustion in his posture. The look in his eyes when a patient reminds him too much of somebody else.
To add to that, around the beginning of the pandemic, his wife dies. Not from COVID, which somehow makes it more merciless.
Pedestrian versus drunk driver—DOA. The call comes in just after midnight. You don’t know it’s her at first. Female in her late thirties. Severe head trauma. Massive internal injuries. CPR in progress.
The paramedics wheel her through the doors while respiratory rushes to clear Trauma One. For one horrible second, before you even see her face, the red string around Jack’s wrist burns.
You freeze, not because you understand yet. Because something deep inside you already does.
Then Jack steps into the trauma room, and everything stops. You watch recognition hit him in real time, the way his body locks up and how color drains from his face beneath the mask.
“No,” he says immediately, as if he says it softly enough, maybe reality will change its mind.
“No.”
Lena moves first.
“Jack—”
“That’s my wife.”
The room goes dead silent. Even with monitors alarming and compressions ongoing, along with Shen asking for another round of epi.
It all disappears under the sound of Jack’s voice breaking.
You’ve seen grief before—you work in emergency medicine, so you see it every day. But nothing prepares you for the sound a person makes when their entire life shatters in front of them. Jack tries to step forward, but Lena catches him immediately. “Jack.”
“No, let me—”
“Jack.”
“She’s still warm—”
His voice cracks apart on the words. The paramedic quietly says they found no pulse on scene. Prolonged downtime. Non-survivable head trauma. You can’t breathe—nobody can.
Jack looks at his wife lying on the trauma bed like he genuinely cannot understand what he’s seeing; his brain refuses to process it. Blood in her hair and on the sheet, with her wedding ring still on her hand. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist pulls painfully tight—before snapping loose.
Jack stares at his own wrist instinctively. The string tied there—gone. His face crumples. All that’s left is a man realizing the universe just took something from him that it can never give back.
COVID restrictions mean none of you are allowed at the funeral. No gathering or reception. No sitting beside him in church or placing a hand on his shoulder in comfort; bringing food to his house while relatives fill the rooms with noise and stories and grief.
Only Zoom.
Fucking Zoom.
You sit alone in your apartment at three in the afternoon after night shift, still in scrubs because you were too tired to change, laptop balanced on your kitchen table.
Everyone’s little squares flicker on-screen. Lena is crying silently, Ellis is muted, while Shen is trying and failing not to cry. Multiple other night shift staff are trying their best to pull themselves together—to be brave for Jack.
While Jack is sitting alone in a black button-down shirt in a house that suddenly looks too empty.
He looks hollow. That’s the only word for it. Hollowed out from the inside. You realize halfway through the service that he hasn’t stopped twisting his wedding ring around his finger once. Maybe he believes that if he keeps touching it, maybe she’s still here somehow.
You cry with your microphone muted.
Afterward, nobody knows what to say. There are no casseroles or hugs. No standing together in shared grief. Only little squares blink off one by one until Jack is the last person left in the call.
You stay after everyone disconnects. “You should sleep,” you say quietly. Jack lets out a humorless laugh, “Yeah.”
But he doesn’t move, and neither do you. Finally, he says, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
There it is… the unbearable part, because she died instantly—no final words or closure. She was there one second—gone the next.
You press your lips together hard enough that they hurt as you faintly say, “I’m so sorry, Jack.”
He nods once because he’s heard it too many times already. Then his face folds inward suddenly, grief cracking through whatever fragile composure he’s been holding together. You’ve never seen him cry before, not really. Now he looks destroyed by it.
“I keep thinking she’s gonna walk through the door,” he whispers. “I keep forgetting for like… five seconds.”
Your lungs ache so violently that it feels unbearable.
Because despite everything—despite the string and the guilt and all the ways you tried to keep your distance—you love him. And loving someone means you cannot stand there and watch them suffer alone.
Not him.
Never him.
So you stay.
At first casually, then constantly, you start checking on him between shifts. You bring coffee, he forgets to drink, and force him to eat crackers during overnight shifts because grief has hollowed him thin. You sit beside him in the break room when he can’t sleep between traumas.
Some nights he talks, and there are nights he doesn’t. Later on, you learn grief has moods. Some days he’s numb, and some days he’s angry. Or days, a patient wearing the same perfume as his wife nearly sends him spiraling mid-shift. Once, after losing a COVID patient around his wife’s age, Jack locks himself in the stairwell for twenty minutes.
You find him there eventually. Still in PPE with his face shield shoved onto the top of his head, breathing hard like he’s trying not to come apart.
You sit beside him without saying anything. For a long time, neither of you speaks. The stairwell is cold through your scrub pants, concrete hard beneath you. Somewhere beyond the heavy metal door, the hospital keeps moving. Monitors alarming. Phones ringing. Ventilators hissing.
Life continued like his world didn’t just end.
Jack sits one step below you, elbows braced against his knees, surgical cap shoved halfway off his head. His N95 hangs loose around his neck now, leaving angry red pressure marks across his skin. He appears worn out in a manner unrelated to sleep. The type of tiredness that becomes bone-deep.
For a while, all you hear is his controlled breathing, but then, you know, if he lets himself lose control for even a second, he’ll never stop. Then quietly, without looking at you, Jack says, “I don’t know who I am without her.”
You nearly shatter at his confession, because it’s proof he loved her so completely. You saw it every day in small, ordinary ways. In the way his face softened when she walked into the department carrying takeout, or the absent-minded way he leaned toward her without realizing it. In the wedding ring, he twisted whenever he talked about her during quieter shifts. He loved her with the kind of certainty people spend their whole lives searching for, and somehow that only makes you love him more.
You look down at your hands, clasped tightly in your lap.
“At work?” you say softly after a moment. “You’re still Jack.” A weak laugh escapes him, humorless and tired, “Very inspirational speech.”
“I’m serious.”
You glance toward him carefully. Even now, he’s still wearing blood on the sleeve of his isolation gown from the code downstairs. His curls are damp with sweat, exhaustion carved deep into the lines around his eyes.
"When everything hurts," you say carefully, "you don't have to figure out how to survive the next ten years."
Jack finally looks up, with his eyes bloodshot, red-rimmed, and devastatingly tired. "You just find the next thing." His brow furrows slightly as you keep going, "The next cup of coffee that tastes okay."
A faint huff of breath leaves him.
"The next shift." You offer a small smile. "The next stupid joke Shen makes that isn't actually funny."
That earns the ghost of an eye roll—you take it.
"The next hour. The next day." Your throat tightens, but you push through it, "And eventually..." Your voice softens. "Eventually you realize you've made it farther than you thought you could."
Jack stares at you, fully paying attention and listening.
"The pain doesn't disappear," you admit quietly. "Some losses stay with you forever. But one day you wake up, and it isn't the first thing you feel."
The stairwell falls silent again, and you watch as Jack's eyes close briefly as if the possibility of hope hurts. When he opens them again, there's something unbearably raw there—something stripped bare. "You really believe that?" The question comes out almost broken, and you don't hesitate as you reply, "Yes."
Because you have to, for him, for yourself, and for every patient you've ever watched claw their way through impossible things.
"Yes," you repeat softly. Jack studies your face for a long moment—searching for something there. Maybe hope or permission. Or proof that somebody still sees him underneath all the grief. Then he gives one small, fragile nod, because he's trying very hard to believe you, too.
A softer shared silence settles between you again afterward. You remain beside him on the stairwell steps while the hospital hums around you. Two exhausted healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic. One grieving the loss of the love of his life. The other grieving quietly beside him. Then, after a long time, you speak again.
Your voice barely rises above a whisper, "I don't think there's such a thing as a good goodbye." Jack doesn't look away, but you stare at the concrete floor.
"People say it gets easier. That you find closure. That eventually you make peace with it." Your fingers tighten together. "But I think losing someone just becomes part of you. You learn how to carry it." Your throat burns, "There are days when you think you're okay. Days when you laugh and work and breathe normally." You glance toward him. "And then something happens. A song, a smell, maybe a memory.” Blinking back your tears, you revealed, "The grief finds you again."
Jack's eyes shine slightly as you continue softly, "Not because you failed to move on." Your voice wavers. "But because they mattered."
A long silence follows. Then, quietly—"So what am I supposed to do?" When he asks the question, it sounds incredibly trivial.
You look at Jack—at the man who spent years helping everyone else survive. He stayed with frightened soldiers, and loved his wife so completely that even death couldn't erase her from him.
"Keep loving her," you say softly, and Jack's breath catches. "Just don't let her be the reason you stop living, too."
The silence that follows feels sacred, somewhere beneath your sleeve, hidden from the world, the red string wrapped around your wrist aches. Not because it hurts, but because for the first time since she died, you realize you would carry his grief with him for as long as he needed.
Even if he never knew.
2021
YOUR APARTMENT — NIGHT
By late 2021, you recognize the symptoms almost immediately. The exhaustion first. Not normal exhaustion—the kind every ER nurse carries around like a second heartbeat—but something meaner. The sort that becomes deeply ingrained in your bones and wears you out just by standing straight.
Then the fever, then it’s the cough that follows soon after, and the body aches that feel like somebody took a hammer to every joint you have.
You take the rapid test in your bathroom with trembling hands, already knowing what the result will be before the second line even appears.
Positive.
You stare at it for a long moment anyway, “Fuck.”
You’d been vaccinated months ago. Healthcare workers got priority access early on, one of the very few benefits of spending every shift neck-deep in a pandemic. And thank God for that, because without it, you’re almost certain this would’ve landed you intubated in an ICU somewhere.
Still—it hits you hard.
Your immune system has never exactly been reliable. Too many years of stress, skipped meals, night shifts, and pushing yourself past exhaustion had seen to that long before COVID ever existed.
So you quarantine immediately with no qualms or arguments. Immediately, you text Lena and Dana to tell them that you’ve contracted COVID-19. Then you lock yourself inside your apartment and prepare to wait it out.
The loneliness settles in fast after that. The first day isn’t terrible, but the second day is worse. By the third day, you genuinely feel like you’re losing your mind. Your apartment suddenly feels too small and too quiet. Every surface smells faintly of disinfectant and cough drops. Empty Gatorade bottles and medication wrappers clutter your coffee table because you’re too exhausted to clean properly.
You sleep in fragments. Wake up drenched in sweat. Cough until your ribs ache. Then fall asleep again, only to wake up disoriented an hour later. You try texting your family back home once, but hearing your mother’s worried voice over FaceTime nearly makes you cry, so you stop answering calls after that.
You tell everyone you’re fine. You’re not.
One particularly bad night, you sit on the bathroom floor wrapped in a blanket because the cold tiles feel good against your feverish skin, genuinely debating at what oxygen saturation you’d finally call an ambulance.
Ninety-three? Ninety-two?
You know too much…that’s the problem. You’re aware exactly how quickly patients can crash, and what respiratory distress looks like. You know what COVID sounds like when it starts settling deeper into the lungs. And alone in your apartment at two in the morning, feverish and exhausted and struggling not to spiral, you think: If this gets worse, I’m gonna end up at Presby or PTMC.
By day five, your phone is full of unread texts. Lena is checking in, Shen is sending memes, and Ellis is threatening to physically fight you if you don’t hydrate. But then there’s Jack calling twice… then three times.
You don’t answer any of them. Not intentionally. Your brain feels too foggy to function most of the time. Looking at your phone takes effort you barely have energy for. So when there’s suddenly a knock at your apartment door that evening, you frown from beneath your blanket without moving.
Probably the wrong apartment.
Another knock. Then—your real name, muffled through the door in a voice you’d recognize half-asleep.
“Hey.”
Your stomach drops.
No.
Absolutely not.
You push yourself upright too quickly and immediately regret it when dizziness crashes over you. You stumble toward the door anyway, coughing into your elbow before peeking through the peephole.
And there he is.
Jack Abbot. Standing outside your apartment in full PPE. N95. Face shield. Gloves. Isolation gown. Holding a plastic takeout bag in one hand. You stare at him in complete disbelief before yanking yourself back from the door. “Jack?!”
“Oh, good,” his voice comes through the other side, dry with relief. “You’re alive.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” you hiss through the door. “How did you even find where I live?”
“Lena told me… and Dana.”
Traitors.
You lean your forehead briefly against the door, exhausted. “You can’t be here,” you argue weakly. “You could get sick.” Jack snorts softly from the hallway, “Lifeline, we work in an emergency department.”
“That is not comforting!”
“Also,” he continues, ignoring you completely, “is there a reason you’ve been ignoring my texts and calls?”
You close your eyes briefly. Honestly, you hadn’t even realized how many messages you missed.
“Jack—”
“Open the door.”
You blink as you screech, “Are you fucking insane? No.” His voice lowers slightly then, gentler but firmer somehow. “Lifeline.”
Somewhere behind your ribs, the moniker settles heated and perilous.
“Open the door.”
You stare at the wood for a long moment. Then, against every ounce of common sense you possess, you unlock it. The second the door cracks open, Jack’s eyes immediately scan over you clinically. You can practically see the ER doctor in him assessing your flushed skin, fatigue, and mild shortness of breath. The way you’re subtly bracing yourself against the wall to stay upright. In an instant, his face tightens.
"Oh," he murmurs. Somehow, that soft little sound embarrasses you more than if he’d outright said you looked terrible. You cross your arms defensively, “I look worse than I feel.”
“That’s concerning, because you look awful.”
You let out a tired laugh despite yourself, immediately coughing afterward. Jack’s eyes narrow behind the face shield, “How high’s the fever?”
“It’s fine.”
“Temperature.”
“One-oh-one earlier.”
“And oxygen?”
You hesitate half a second too long, and Jack notices immediately, “Lifeline.”
“Ninety-four. I’ve been checking my Apple Watch.”
His jaw tightens, “Okay.”
You step aside reluctantly. “There’s hand sanitizer and ethyl alcohol everywhere. I’ve been disinfecting the place whenever I can.”
Jack walks inside carefully, setting the takeout bag down near the kitchen counter. Your apartment suddenly feels unbearably small with him standing in it. Messy blankets on the couch. Medications scattered across the coffee table. Laundry you’ve been too sick to fold. You suddenly want the earth to swallow you whole. “Sorry,” you mutter. “It’s kind of a disaster.”
Jack glances around once before looking back at you. “I’ve seen residents cry over missing lab results. This is nothing.” That earns another weak laugh out of you while he pulls out one of the dining chairs and gestures toward it, “Sit down before you fall down.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You almost passed out opening the door.”
Rude.
You sit anyway because standing suddenly feels impossible, and Jack immediately starts fussing. Taking your temperature again. Checking your pulse ox. Asking when you last ate.
In a manner that hurts your core, it's somehow intimate. After observing him in silence for a while, you gently inquire, "Why are you here?"
Jack pauses before he shrugs one shoulder like the answer should be obvious. “Because I know you.”
“You don’t have family here,” he continues quietly. “No roommates. No neighbors you’re close enough with to help if things go bad.” He leans back slightly in the chair across from you.
“You moved halfway across the world by yourself,” he says. “So yeah. I came to do a welfare check.” Something warm and painful twists in your chest all at once, so you try covering it with humor. “Am I that unlucky or just that special?”
Jack looks at you for a long moment. Then, softly, he replies, “Just that special.” The room goes very still while your pulse stutters painfully against your ribs. Jack clears his throat first, looking away. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
He gives you a tired, unimpressed look immediately, “Don’t start with me.” You sigh, shoulders slumping. “I feel…” You swallow hard. “Honestly? Like I got hit by a truck.”
Jack nods once like he expected that answer. “My chest hurts when I cough,” you admit quietly. “And I’m exhausted all the time. Walking to the bathroom feels like running a 10k.”
Jack’s expression softens instantly to concern. “Okay,” he says gently. “That sounds about right for breakthrough COVID.”
You laugh weakly, “Reassuring.”
“You’re vaccinated. Your sats are holding. Fever sucks, but you’re stable.” His voice shifts into that calm doctor cadence you’ve heard him use with terrified patients a hundred times before.
“You’re gonna feel miserable for a little while,” he says softly. “But you’re not dying.”
The ridiculous thing is—you believe him immediately. Maybe because it’s Jack, he always sounds certain even when the world is falling apart. Or maybe because after spending almost a week alone in your apartment feeling terrified and sick and invisible—having somebody show up for you feels dangerously close to relief.
Somewhere beneath the fever and exhaustion and the red string hidden under your sleeve, you realize this is the first time since his wife died that Jack has willingly stepped into somebody else’s home again.
The thought nearly breaks your heart.
Grief has a way of shrinking people's worlds—you'd watched it happen to Jack in real time. After his wife died, he stopped inviting people over. Stopped talking about home or lingering after conversations that might eventually end with someone asking how he was doing outside of work. The walls had gone up slowly. Brick by brick. Most people probably never noticed, but you did. Yet here he is, standing in your cluttered apartment with a stethoscope in one hand and a grocery bag full of electrolyte drinks in the other.
"Drink."
You stare at the bottle he shoves toward you, "You're very bossy outside the hospital."
"Drink." He insists.
"Is this because I ignored your texts?"Jack gives you a look, the one he usually reserves for patients actively making terrible decisions. "Partly."
You sigh dramatically and take the bottle, "Happy?"
"No."
That catches your attention. You look up, and Jack is standing near the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest. The concern on his face isn't hidden anymore. Hasn't been since he walked through the door. "You should've told somebody you were this sick." Your laugh comes out hoarse, "I did."
"No." Jack shakes his head, "You told people you were fine."
"...I was trying not to worry anyone."
"You had a one-oh-one fever and couldn't walk to your bathroom without getting winded."
You look away because when he says it like that, it sounds bad. "It sounds worse when you say it."
"That's because it is worse."
You can't help smiling, but that only seems to annoy him more.
"Why are you smiling?"
"You care."
Jack stares and then immediately looks away. Your fever-addled brain doesn't miss the faint flush creeping up his neck. "Of course I care."
The answer comes too naturally, and for some reason, that makes something warm settle beneath your body. The television murmurs faintly in the background, forgotten as Jack eventually disappears into your kitchen. You hear cabinets opening and then closing. A frustrated sigh leaves him, "How do you have absolutely no food?"
"I have food."
"You have soy sauce and olive oil."
"That's food-adjacent."
Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. "You work in healthcare."
"So do you."
"I know."
"Have you seen what doctors eat?"
He points at you from across the room, "Deflection."
You grin while Jack shakes his head again, but he opens the takeout containers anyway and pours you soup. Then make sure you actually eat it and wait until you're halfway through before finally sitting down. The quiet and unexpected realization sneaks up on him that somehow—he likes taking care of you. Because it shouldn't feel this good. It shouldn't feel this natural to be here. To fuss over your fever, refill your water glass, and check your pulse ox every twenty minutes because he doesn't trust you not to lie about your symptoms.
Yet every time he glances up and sees you curled beneath a blanket on the couch, alive and stubborn and complaining—something in his heart eases. The same feeling he gets when a trauma patient finally stabilizes. When someone he was worried about turns out okay. Only different. This time, it’s more personal and complicated.
You cough suddenly, and Jack is moving before he even realizes it, quickly handing you water. Waiting until the coughing fit passes. Your eyes lift toward him over the rim of the glass. It’s soft and sleepy. "Thank you." Your words are quiet and sincere.
And God help him—that does something to him. Something he doesn't examine too closely.
Because if he does—he might have to ask himself questions he's not ready to answer. Questions like why spending an afternoon taking care of you feels better than spending it anywhere else, or why your apartment already feels strangely familiar. Why did the idea of you being here alone all week bother him so much?
Instead, he focuses on something safer—annoyance. "You know," he says, sitting back in his chair, "your soulmate's doing a terrible job."
You blink at that, frowning, "What?" Jack shrugs, "If they're out there somewhere, they're slacking." A surprised laugh escapes you. "What does that even mean?"
"It means," he says, gesturing vaguely toward your blanket burrito state, "you're sick. Alone. Living on cough drops and spite."
"I had soup."
"You had olive oil."
"That was one time."
Jack rolls his eyes, "My point stands." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "They should've shown up by now." The joke is spoken carelessly, and he doesn't know it nearly stops your heart.
You look away first, toward the rain-streaked window, literally anywhere but him. Because if you look at Jack right now—if you look at the man sitting in your apartment, taking care of you, worrying over you, complaining about a soulmate who never appeared—you might break.
The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly burdensome. But Jack doesn't notice, he's too busy opening another bottle of water and making sure your fever isn't climbing again. Somewhere in the quiet warmth of your apartment, he doesn’t realize the irony. Jack is sitting exactly where he should be. Doing exactly what he was supposed to do, and somehow, he can’t see it yet.
2023
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT
Five years ago, you were the new nurse from the Philippines. Now you're simply part of the Pitt. Nobody really introduces you anymore. You're just there, part of the machinery. You know where everything is and everyone's habits. Or when Ellis is pretending to chart and is actually looking for the next best place to nap for her double. You know when Shen is about to spiral before he even realizes it himself. By now, you have memorized Lena's "I'm not mad, I'm disappointed" face is significantly more terrifying than actual anger.
Somewhere along the way—you became one of the safest places in Jack's life. Neither of you meant for that to happen.
It just did.
There are hundreds of tiny moments, none of which seem important on their own. But together, they're devastating. A patient's husband is screaming in the hallway after a failed resuscitation. Security is trying to de-escalate, family members are crying, and the entire department feels tense. Then, appearing devastated, Jack leaves the room but not in a noticeable way. Most people wouldn't recognize it, but you do.
You don't say anything; instead, you simply hand him a cup of coffee. Exactly how he takes it. He looks down at it, then at you. "Mind reader?" You shrug, "You looked like you needed caffeine." The corner of his mouth twitches, "Thanks."
Somehow, that small smile stays with him the rest of the shift.
Another night, it’s three in the morning. Everyone's fucking exhausted. You're sitting on the floor of the supply room because it's the only place nobody can find you for five minutes. Jack opens the door and stops. He finds you sitting there cross-legged, eating stale vending machine pretzels. "You hiding?"
"No."
"You are literally hiding."
You hold up a pretzel, defensive, "This is self-care." Jack stares at you, then, to your horror, he sits beside you on the floor. Like it's completely normal. "You know we're adults, right?" he asks.
"Says the man eating peanut butter crackers for dinner." Jack looks offended; he scoffs, "I had a protein bar." You roll your eyes at that, "Oh. Well, that's different."
His laugh echoes through the tiny room. It’s warm and unrestrained. The sound settles somewhere dangerous inside your chest. Then the days keep passing by, and then the days turn into months, then it’s another shift, another trauma.
Another impossible night.
A frightened little girl refuses to let go of your hand while waiting for stitches. You're sitting beside her bed, explaining every step of the procedure. Making balloon animals out of gloves while telling ridiculous stories.
By the time you're finished, she's laughing. You don't notice Jack standing in the doorway watching or the expression on his face either. The one that lingers long after he walks away. Because somewhere over the years, admiration has quietly become affection.
Affection has started becoming something else—something he doesn't have a name for yet. Jack's issue is that he doesn't immediately feel things. Without thinking, he simply begins searching for you first.
A difficult trauma comes in? His eyes automatically find yours. A bad shift? He looks for you at Central. A joke occurs to him? He wants to tell you. A patient reminds him of something sad? Somehow, you're the person he ends up talking to.
It happens gradually enough that neither of you notices.
Until everyone else does.
"You know Abbot's gonna have a breakdown if Lifeline ever leaves, right?" Ellis says it casually while charting. You nearly choke on your coffee, "What?" Across the desk, Shen immediately nods. "Oh, absolutely."
"Parker."
"I'm serious."
You point threateningly, "Stop." Parker raises both hands. "Hey, I don't make the rules."
You refuse to acknowledge the strange warmth crawling up your neck. Because if you acknowledge it—you'll have to acknowledge the way your heart still skips whenever Jack smiles at you. After all these years, that feels pathetic.
2024
PTMC, MAIN ENTRANCE — DAY
The rain starts sometime around six in the morning. Not a drizzle—a proper Pittsburgh downpour. The kind that turns streets silver and pounds against windows hard enough to drown out conversation.
After twelve hours of chaos, the entire department begins filtering out toward the parking garage and bus stops. You finally clock out around seven—exhausted and half-awake, absolutely ready for sleep.
When you step outside, you immediately spot Jack standing beneath the small emergency department awning.
Watching the rain… alone with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. Looking at him, you pause, "You're still here?"
Jack glances over, "My car's in the shop."
That explains it.
"How'd you get here?"
"Rideshare."
You look out toward the street, and the rain is somehow worse now. Jack follows your gaze, "Trying to decide how miserable walking home is gonna be." You glance over, "What happened to your ride?"
Jack lets out a tired breath, "Canceled."
"What?"
"Driver got stuck downtown." You wince at that, and he pulls his phone from his pocket and turns the screen toward you. The rideshare app is a disaster—surge pricing, long wait times. One estimate says thirty-eight minutes, while another says unavailable. Apparently, every exhausted healthcare worker in Pittsburgh had the same idea after shift. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Yeah." Jack stuffs his phone away again. "I've been refreshing it for ten minutes."
You look back toward the rain, then down at the umbrella dangling from your wrist, and then back at him. You ask, "No umbrella?"
"Nope."
You stare at him, then at the rain… and then at the very obvious lack of any workable plan. So, without thinking twice, you hold the umbrella out. Jack blinks, looks at the umbrella, and then at you. Then back at the umbrella. It's baby pink and covered in tiny Miffy rabbits. The ears are even printed around the trim—the thing looks aggressively cheerful.
"You serious?"
"Very."
A laugh escapes him, a real one. Low and surprised and completely unguarded. It's probably the first genuine laugh you've heard from him all shift, maybe longer. You feel absurdly proud of yourself as you snort, "Sorry about the color."
Jack studies the umbrella again, "I think I'll survive."
"You sure? Might destroy your reputation."
"My reputation was already questionable."
"Fair."
You press the handle into his hand without hesitation, because that's just who you are. Someone needs help, so you help; it's that simple. Jack looks genuinely baffled. "Wait."
You pause.
"What about you?" He asks, concerned. You shrug. The rain is cold, and the morning is gray. You've worked twelve hours, and your back hurts, along with your feet. But somehow none of that feels important. "I live closer than you do."
"Lifeline."
"Jack."
"You'll get soaked."
You smile, bright and softly. The same smile you've given frightened patients, overwhelmed residents, and grieving family members. You shrug, "It's rain."
His brow furrows, "You say that like hypothermia isn't a thing." You laugh at that, "I'm from the Philippines. Rain and I have a long-standing relationship."
"That's not remotely reassuring."
"It shouldn't be."
Jack shakes his head, but he's smiling now, which gives you a bit of peace. His eyes linger on you a second too long. Or maybe you're imagining it. You probably are—you usually are. Then you add quietly, "Besides, sometimes life is easier when you stop trying to avoid every uncomfortable thing."
Jack's expression softens, and you glance toward the rain. "Sometimes you just accept you're gonna get soaked and go home anyway." Neither of you says anything for a little bit. Because you both know that your words aren't really about the rain, neither of you acknowledges it. A laugh escapes him again, and he shakes his head, "You always have an answer for everything."
"No." You step backward toward the edge of the awning, and the cold rain immediately spatters against your scrub pants while you grin. "You just have to trust you'll be okay once you get there."
That gets another laugh out of him, the kind that reaches his eyes. You would do almost anything to keep hearing that sound. The umbrella remains clutched in his hand. Pink, ridiculous, and entirely yours. But for some reason, he can't stop staring at it. Or at you, standing in the rain, completely unapologetically yourself. No performance or hidden agenda. Only your kindness offered freely, as if giving away the only thing keeping you dry is the most natural decision in the world.
The thing is—Jack has spent years watching people take. Watching grief take, life and death take. And you...You are always giving… your time, your patience, and your terrible vending machine snacks. Your heart, if someone needed it badly enough. Now, it’s your umbrella.
Something warm twists unexpectedly inside of him, and he feels tingling all over his skin, as well as his mouth begins to dry. You lift a hand in farewell, "See you tomorrow, Dr. Abbot."
Then you turn and jog into the rain, water immediately drenches your hair, and you laugh when your shoe splashes into a puddle. You keep running anyway. While Jack just stands there—watching, until you disappear around the corner. Long after you're gone, he remains beneath the awning with your pink umbrella still hanging from his hand.
The rideshare app was forgotten entirely, and the rain pounded against the pavement as the morning traffic crawled by. For the first time in a very long time—the thought of going home doesn't feel quite as lonely. He looks down at the ridiculous little umbrella again. Then, despite himself, he smiles. Because somehow the damn thing feels exactly like you.
2025
NIGHTCLUB, PITTSBURGH — NIGHT
The music is loud enough to vibrate through your ribs. Honestly, you're having fun, a rare occurrence these days. Between night shifts and overtime and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life outside of the Pitt, opportunities to be a normal twenty-something are increasingly rare.
So when a few friends invited you out, you said yes. You danced, drank, and laughed. You let yourself forget about work for a few hours, and somewhere between your second drink and the realization that your feet hurt, you discovered a very important problem.
Your apartment keys were gone—completely vanished, you checked your purse three times. Your jacket pockets twice, then the bathroom counter, next the bar, and still nothing. Which is how you found yourself sitting in a booth near the back of the club with your phone pressed to your ear.
Waiting for Jack to answer.
He picks up on the second ring, "Everything okay?" You immediately relax, which is probably a problem. "Maybe."
Jack sighs, the sound of a man who has known you far too long, "What happened?" You look mournfully into your drink, "I lost my keys." A pause on the other end, and then, "You what?"
"They're gone."
"Lifeline."
"They disappeared."
"Keys don't disappear."
"They absolutely do."
The music swells around you, and someone screams happily near the dance floor. Through the phone, Jack suddenly goes quiet. He asks, "Where are you?"
You blink, "Huh?"
"Where are you?"
You frown, then glance up at the neon sign hanging over the bar, "Oh." You tell him the club's name. The silence on the other end lasts approximately two seconds before you hear him ask, "How are you getting home?"
You wave a hand vaguely despite the fact he can't see you, "M'gonna Uber." The words come out more slurred than intended. Silence... a long silence, then you hear him sigh, "Jesus Christ."
"It’s not that bad—"
"No."
You open your mouth to argue, but Jack beats you to it. "I'm picking you up." You immediately sober, exclaiming, "What?"
"Do not leave with anybody."
"Jack—"
"Do not get into a stranger's car."
"That's literally what Uber is." You throw back in response.
"Lifeline." The warning in his voice makes you sit up straighter. "I'm serious. Stay where you are."
"Jack—"
"I'm already grabbing my keys."
Your stomach flips unexpectedly as you point out, "You're working tomorrow."
"So are you."
"Jack."
His voice drops lower, gentler as he begs, "Please." And that ends the argument before it starts. You stare at your drink and reluctantly reply, "...Okay."
"Good." A beat and then you hear, "Don't hang up."
Twenty-five minutes later, Jack walks into the club and promptly forgets how to breathe, because he has never seen you like this before. At work, you're always in scrubs, with your hair pulled back, minimal makeup, and practical shoes.
Tonight—tonight you look nothing like the nurse who steals his coffee and argues with surgeons. Your hair is down, and your makeup catches the flashing lights every time you move. The outfit you're wearing should probably be illegal—at least that's what his traitorous brain immediately decides. Far too much skin and too beautiful—too distracting.
Jack stares for half a second too long, but then immediately hates himself for it. Because he's Jack and you're you. You're his friend, and he's forty-something years old and should absolutely know better. But the sudden realization that other people are staring at you, too, fills him with an entirely unreasonable amount of irritation. There are multiple reasons he hates that realization—none of them are good. You spot him immediately, and relief floods your face, "Jack!"
Somehow that's worse—because you're happy to see him, you always are. Jack pushes through the crowd toward your booth. He asks, "You okay?"
You grin, a little tipsy and a little tired, "Hi."
"That's not an answer."
"I lost my keys."
"You mentioned."
You immediately point at him, "I looked."
"I believe you."
"I looked everywhere."
Jack softens despite himself, "I know."
Just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The amount of trust you've placed in him over the years—it sneaks up on him sometimes, along with the amount he's placed in you. Neither of you ever talks about it—it's just simply there.
"Where are your friends?"
You blink.
"Oh."
You glance toward the dance floor, where your group has completely disappeared into the crowd. One of them is standing on a platform dancing with a stranger. Another appears to be attempting karaoke despite there being no karaoke machine. Honestly, nobody looks remotely concerned about your whereabouts. You point vaguely, "Over there." Jack follows your finger, and immediately regrets it. "Jesus."
You laugh, "They're having fun."
"They look like a liability."
"They are." A pause, then you smile warmly at him. The kind of smile that's become increasingly difficult for him to ignore lately.
"You ready to head home?" The question comes out gentler than he intended. Your expression softens immediately. "Mhm."
There’s no argument because the answer was always going to be yes. After all, it's him asking. Something in Jack's chest tightens unexpectedly. You climb out of the booth and wobble slightly when your heel catches on the edge of the floor. His hand is on your elbow before either of you thinks about it. It’s steady and instinctive—the contact lasts barely a second, but you both notice. Your eyes flick down to his hand, then back up to his face. Neither of you says anything, and Jack clears his throat first before he lets go, "You good?"
You nod immediately, "Mhm. Yep." Then point at him. "I need to go tell them I'm not being kidnapped by you."
The laugh that escapes him is helpless, "You go do that."
You grin, "Okay.” Before turning toward the dance floor, you lightly tap his arm. It’s a small gesture, mindless and affectionate. The kind of touch friends make without thinking. Yet Jack feels it long after you've disappeared into the crowd. He watches you weave through the dancers. Watch you throw your arms around one of your friends.
You laugh at something that makes your whole face light up, and standing there in the middle of a crowded nightclub, surrounded by strangers and flashing lights and music loud enough to shake the floor—Jack suddenly realizes he's smiling. He's smiling because you're happy and somewhere deep down, in a place he has been carefully avoiding for a very long time—he knows that's becoming a problem.
You weave your way through the crowd, dodging dancers and spilled drinks, until you finally find your friends near the center of the dance floor. One of them immediately grabs your arm, "There you are!" You laugh, "Apparently, I'm leaving."
"What?" another groans theatrically. "Already?"
You point toward the edge of the club—toward Jack. Standing near the entrance with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, waiting. The second your friends spot him, several heads swivel at once. Then all of them turn suspiciously slowly back toward you.
"Ohhh."
You immediately know that tone, you shake your head, "No."
"That's the doctor."
"No."
"The hot doctor."
You cover your face, "Oh my God." One of them leans closer, asking, "Is he your boyfriend?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Very."
"Because he definitely looks like he's here to pick up his girlfriend." Heat floods your face instantly, "No, he does not."
Across the room, Jack glances over, as if sensing he's being talked about. But when he spots you, his expression visibly relaxes. And unfortunately, your friends see that too. "Oh my God."
You groan, "Stop."
"He likes you."
"He does not."
"He drove here to rescue you from yourself."
"That's called friendship."
"That's called middle-aged pining." You nearly choke, "Please never say those words again."
Laughter follows you all the way back toward the entrance, and Jack looks mildly concerned the closer you get. "You okay?"
"Apparently not."
He narrows his eyes at your response, "What happened?"
"My friends are terrible people."
"Fair."
You point at him, "Don't encourage them."
"I'm not encouraging anybody."
"Liar."
The corner of his mouth twitches, and just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The simple fact that he's here has solved half the problem already. Then you take two steps toward the exit, but Jack is moving before he even thinks about it. One hand catches your elbow, and the other settles briefly at your waist, steadying you. The contact is innocent, but your breath catches anyway. It’s practical and necessary, at least that's what both of you tell yourselves.
"Whoa there." Jack says, and you blink up at him, then immediately start laughing, "I think the floor moved."
"The floor did not move."
"It absolutely moved."
"Lifeline."
"I'm just saying." Jack shakes his head, and his hand doesn't immediately leave your waist. Neither of you seems to notice. Or maybe both of you notice too much. "Come on."
You allow him to guide you outside, and the cool night air hits immediately. Rain lingers on the pavement, turning the streets into rivers of reflected neon. You inhale deeply, then sway again. Jack catches you before it becomes a problem. His hand settles more firmly against your side this time, and your body immediately relaxes into the contact like it's familiar.
Jack notices that too. "You good?" He asked, and you nod, "Mhm." A beat, and then you add, "The ground's still suspicious."
That earns a real laugh out of him, and you love that sound.
The parking lot isn't far, but Jack keeps his hand on your waist the entire walk there. Just in case… well, at least that's what he tells himself. Not because he likes the feeling of you beside him or how perfectly you fit there.
Just in case. That's all…. at least for tonight.
Jack sighs. The long-suffering sigh of a man who spends his life dealing with stubborn people. "Come on."
You allow him to guide you… well. at least until you nearly walk directly into a group of people entering the club. Jack catches your shoulder and redirects you gently, "Okay."
"What?"
His hand settles more firmly against your back, "Maybe we're graduating from independent walking." You gasp dramatically, "I am fully capable." But your words come out slightly slurred.
Jack raises an eyebrow, "You just tried to walk through three people."
"They were in my way."
A laugh escapes him. God. You're something truly special.
Now he has a new problem. Namely, getting you safely into his truck before you attempt something stupid.
The passenger-side door swings open, and you stare at it, then back at the seat. Jack immediately knows what's happening. "Need help?"
"No." A pause as you squint at the truck suspiciously. "Maybe."
"It's higher than it looked five seconds ago, isn't it?"
"It definitely wasn't this tall before."
Jack bites the inside of his cheek, hard, trying not to laugh.
"Okay."
Before you can protest, his firm hands settle at your waist, and suddenly you're being lifted just enough to get into the passenger seat. The whole thing takes maybe two seconds, except neither of you feels normal afterward. You freeze, and Jack also freezes. His hands are still on your waist, and you're looking directly at each other—far too close.
For a brief, dangerous moment, neither of you moves. Then Jack clears his throat, immediately stepping back. "Seatbelt."
Your brain takes several seconds to reboot, "What?"
"Seatbelt."
"Oh."
Of course, duh. You fumble with it and miss the buckle twice before Jack reaches over and clicks it into place. His face is suddenly very near again. Near enough to see the tiny scar near his jaw, and that your heart starts doing things it absolutely should not be doing. "There." His voice comes out lower than usual. You swallow, "Thanks."
Neither of you acknowledges how strange the moment felt and the warmth lingering where his hands had been. Or the way Jack has to grip the steering wheel a little tighter once he's behind it. Because some things are easier left alone. At least for now.
JACK ABBOT’S APARTMENT — NIGHT
The drive back to your apartment is quieter than the nightclub. The city has settled into that strange hour between night and morning, when the roads are mostly empty, and the traffic lights seem to change for no one. Rain taps softly against the windshield as Jack drives, one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift. You are attempting to stay awake. Attempting being the important word here. Every few minutes, your head tips toward the window before jerking upright again.
Jack notices every single time, "You can sleep."
"I'm not sleeping."
"You were asleep thirty seconds ago."
"I was thinking."
"You were drooling."
You gasp in offense, and Jack doesn't even look at you as he commands, "Go to sleep."
"You're mean." A laugh escapes him at your comment. He realizes that he’s been doing it a lot when he’s around you.
By the time you arrive at your apartment, you’re humming a song, trying to stay awake. Then Jack pats his pocket, and freezes when he realizes, "...Shit."
You blink, "What?" He closes his eyes, "I forgot your spare key." You stare, then immediately start laughing.
Jack groans, "Oh my God."
"You drove all the way there."
“Don’t.”
"You forgot the whole reason you picked me up."
"Don't."
Your laughter gets worse, and for the first time in years, Jack lets out a full belly laugh too. He begins to drive to his apartment, and since it’s late, he offers for you to crash at his place.
By the time he pulls into his apartment complex, you're visibly losing the fight against exhaustion and alcohol—mostly alcohol. The second you step through the front door, you kick your heels off exaggeratedly. One lands near the couch, and the other somehow ends up halfway down the hallway. Jack silently watches this happen. Then watches you attempt to unbuckle whatever complicated contraption is keeping your outfit together. "Okay," he says immediately.
"What?"
"Maybe let's not do that."
You frown at him, "Why?"
Because you're drunk—very drunk, and apparently completely unaware that you're standing in the middle of his apartment trying to peel yourself out of an outfit that has occupied far too much of his attention already. Jack suddenly finds the ceiling fascinating, the wall too. Actually, maybe the floor. Anywhere except you.
"Because," he says carefully, "you need pajamas."
"Oh." You consider this, then nod solemnly. "Pajamas are smart."
"Thank you."
"I am smart."
"You are." He nods, and you point at him, "I knew you'd agree."
Jack presses his lips together. God help him. Somehow, over the years, you've become one of his favorite people. A few minutes later, after much negotiation and several failed attempts to convince you that sleeping in sequins is a terrible idea, Jack disappears into his bedroom closet. He returns holding an old Army shirt—worn soft with age, the fabric faded from years of washing, along with a pair of boxers. You stare, then grin. "These yours?" Jack immediately regrets everything, "Yes."
"Cool."
Then, before he can stop you—you start changing.
"Jesus Christ."
You blink, "What?"
Jack is staring firmly at the opposite wall. "You could've warned me."
"Why?"
Because you're still drunk enough that embarrassment hasn't caught up with you yet. Meanwhile, Jack is discovering entirely new levels of self-control.
"Bathroom," he says.
"Right." You pause, then gesture wildly. "The bathroom."
"Correct."
Five minutes later, you emerge wearing the oversized shirt. The hem brushes your thighs while sleeves hang past your hands. The sight nearly kills him, because you look comfortable—like you belong here. Which is a thought he immediately shoves into a locked box and throws into the ocean. Nope. Not touching that. Absolutely not. That’s reserved for a future therapy session. Boy, is his therapist going to love that.
"Sit."
You immediately sit on the edge of his bed.
"Drink."
You obediently accept the water bottle, and Jack blinks, "That's new."
"What?"
"You listened."
You point at him, "You're bossy."
"Drink the water."
You drink the water, then he hands you a spare toothbrush and makes sure you actually use it. Then spends several minutes making certain you don't accidentally fall asleep face-first into the sink. By the time he's satisfied you're hydrated and functional enough not to accidentally die overnight, you're sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed, wrapped in one of his old shirts and looking increasingly sleepy.
You dig through your purse. "There are makeup wipes in here."
Jack pauses, asks, "You carry those around?"
"My eyeliner smudges." You shrug. "My mascara too."
Jack shakes his head, "Prepared for everything."
"It's literally why we carry purses."
"Pretty sure that's not why."
"It absolutely is."
He finds the packet eventually and pulls one free, then gestures to you, "Come here." You blink, dazed, "What?"
"Your mascara's halfway down your face."
Well, that’s fucking mortifying—immediately you cover your face, "Oh my God." Jack laughs softly; the sound is low and warm. "You're fine."
"No, I'm not."
"You really are."
Gently, he pulls your hand away and carefully brushes the wipe across your cheek. His touch is light, patient, and unhurried. The same hands that place chest tubes and suture wounds and perform procedures under pressure somehow become impossibly gentle. They always do around people he cares about. You go strangely still, and the room suddenly feels too quiet and small. Jack is close enough that the details become impossible to ignore. The silver was woven through his hair. The exhaustion that never quite leaves his eyes. The traces of loss he carries with him even now. And still, despite all of it—or maybe because of it—he remains devastatingly, painfully beautiful.
"You've done this before." The words leave your mouth before you can stop them.
Jack's hand stills briefly, then resumes. "Mmm." His voice is soft, a little distant. "She hated taking her makeup off."
The ache arrives instantly—it’s deep and familiar.
"She'd fall asleep on the couch." A small smile touches his mouth. "Every time." His gaze drops to the wipe in his hand, "Eventually, it was easier to do it myself."
A tender silence settles over the room, and suddenly your eyes sting. Because even now—all these years later—he still misses her. Of course he does, he always will.
"Jack." He looks up, and you swallow hard. "I'm sorry."
His hand pauses, and he asks, "For what?"
Your throat tightens painfully, "I know you miss her." The words come out small, but completely honest, and are barely above a whisper. Jack looks at you, and what he sees nearly unravels him. Because you're crying for him—not for yourself, or because you're drunk. You're crying because his pain hurts you. Because somehow you've always carried pieces of everyone else's heartbreak as if it belongs to you too.
A tear slips down your cheek, and before you can wipe it away, Jack reaches up, his thumb tenderly brushes gently across your skin.
The touch lingers slightly.
"Hey." His voice is impossibly soft, "Don't cry, honey."
The endearment slips out before he can stop it. The second it does, the room changes. Your breath catches, and Jack freezes. Neither of you moves. For one suspended second, the entire world narrows to that single point of contact. His hand against your cheek, your eyes locked on his. The silence between you is suddenly filled with things neither of you knows how to say. Then Jack does the only thing he can think of—he opens his arms, and you go willingly. The hug is immediate, warm, and safe. Your forehead presses against his shoulder, and his strong arms wrap around you while you melt into him without hesitation. Trusting him completely, the way you always have. Fuck—that might be the most dangerous thing of all. For a moment, neither of you lets go, because none of you wants to. Jack can feel your heartbeat through the thin cotton of his shirt and feel your breathing gradually slowing. He can feel himself becoming far too aware of how perfectly you fit against him.
He closes his eyes for a second.
A mistake.
Because the truth waits for him there—the truth that somewhere along the way, you stopped being just his friend and just his favorite nurse. Stopped being just the person he trusted most and became something he doesn't know what to do with.
Eventually, your breathing evens out. Then slows….then slows again. Jack glances down and realizes you've fallen asleep curled against him. Carefully, he shifts and lowers you onto the bed, pulls the blanket over you, and tucks it beneath your shoulder. The motion is automatic, and for a moment, guilt rises sharp and sudden. Not because you remind him of his late wife. You don't, and you never have. You never will. But somehow that realization doesn't hurt. It simply feels true. You are different—entirely your own person. Entirely your own place in his life. Jack stands there for a long moment, watching you sleep peacefully. Then quietly, he reaches for his crutches resting beside the nightstand.
The apartment is dark now, silent, as he pauses at the doorway, looks back one last time, at you sleeping in his bed. Wrapped in his shirt, breathing softly against his pillow, and despite every effort not to—Jack smiles. Then he switches off the light and heads toward the couch. Completely unaware that he's already fallen far deeper than he ever intended to.
JACK ABBOT'S APARTMENT — MORNING
The first thing you notice when you wake up is that you're comfortable. Suspiciously comfortable. Wrapped in sheets that smell faintly of clean laundry and something familiar you can't quite place. For a few blissful seconds, you remain exactly where you are, half-buried beneath the blankets, eyes still closed. Then your brain starts working slowly… like an old computer booting up. Your mouth is dry, your head hurts, and you have absolutely no idea where the hell you are.
You crack one eye open, and a ceiling you don't recognize stares back. Your stomach immediately drops. "Oh no."
Then the memories start returning. The nightclub, losing your keys, calling Jack… Jack picking you up. The drive to his apartment, the makeup wipes, and the hug. Oh God. The hug.
Your eyes fly open, fully awake now. Mortification floods your entire body with terrifying speed. "No, no, no, no..."
You immediately bury your face in your hands. Maybe if you stay here long enough, you'll evaporate, and the earth will open up and swallow you whole. Maybe cardiac arrest—you'd accept cardiac arrest. Slowly, you peek out from between your fingers, and a glass of water sits on the nightstand. Beside it is a bottle of ibuprofen and a neatly folded note in Jack's handwriting.
Drink water before standing up.
Your heart does something deeply unhelpful as you groan, "Oh, my God."
Because that's such a Jack thing to do, he’s practical, thoughtful, and annoyingly sweet. You whimper and flop backward onto the pillow.
Unfortunately, reality remains—and reality is that you are currently in Jack Abbot's bed. His bed—his actual bed, the place where he sleeps. The place where—You immediately shove that thought into a dumpster and set it on fire. Nope. Absolutely not. Not going there.
You drag yourself upright before your imagination can make things worse. The oversized Army shirt hanging off your shoulders shifts as you move. Your eyes immediately drop. Jack's shirt. You are wearing Jack's shirt. You consider throwing yourself out of the nearest window.
The bathroom is somehow worse. Because now you're sober, fully sober. Which means you remember everything… mostly. You splash cold water onto your face repeatedly. Trying to wash away the embarrassment and the memory of crying. The image of him calling you honey and you falling asleep against him.
"Oh, I'm never recovering from this." You groan into the sink before you force yourself to look in the mirror. You survive trauma shifts and twelve-hour nights. You went through fucking COVID. So… you can survive breakfast. Probably.
After one final pep talk that accomplishes absolutely nothing, you step out of the bathroom and immediately stop. A framed photograph sits atop the dresser, Jack and his wife, both smiling. The picture looks old, well-loved, the edges slightly worn. Guilt arrives like a punch to the ribs. Because no matter how much time has passed, she's still here. In photographs, memories, and the quiet spaces, he doesn't talk about. You stare at the picture for a moment longer, then look away. The guilt lingers anyway.
The smell hits you before you reach the living room. Coffee, eggs, and toast, along with something frying in a pan. Your stomach growls traitorously, then you turn the corner, and nearly walk directly into a wall. Because Jack is standing at the stove, shirtless. You stop functioning completely. Gone. No thoughts. Head empty. Just panic. Because somehow, in all the years you've known him, you've never actually seen him like this.
At work, he's always covered by scrubs, layers, a jacket, and PPE. Now—now he's standing barefoot in his kitchen wearing nothing but athletic shorts and his prosthetic. Morning sunlight spills through the apartment windows. Across broad shoulders, freckled skin, and muscle earned through years of physical therapy, stubbornness, and sheer determination. The prosthetic is already attached as part of him, as familiar and unremarkable as breathing. You know the story and what happened, and understand now the work it takes to live with it.
Still—seeing him outside the hospital feels strangely intimate, and very human. Your jaw nearly hits the floor as Jack turns. He immediately catches your expression, and to his eternal satisfaction, you look horrified. Not by him, but by being caught staring. His mouth twitches, "Morning."
You blink once, then twice, and you begin rapidly looking anywhere else.
"Morning." Your voice cracks. Well, that’s spectacular. Jack's eyebrow rises, "Rough landing?" You clear your throat. "Oh, absolutely."
His smile grows slightly. "There are worse hangovers."
"Don't."
"You called me at midnight because you lost your keys."
"Jack."
"You accused the floor of moving."
"Jack."
"You tried to negotiate with a coat rack."
Your eyes widen as you sputter, "I did not."
"You absolutely did."
"Oh my fucking God."
Jack laughs—there it is again, a little lighter than it used to be. "Come eat." You hesitate, still standing awkwardly in his shirt, and painfully aware you're in his apartment—his space. Then Jack glances over his shoulder, "You need food before your headache gets worse."
There it is. His doctor voice—the one that brooks absolutely no argument. You sigh dramatically and obey. Because apparently that's become a habit. Jack places a plate in front of you. Eggs, toast, fruit, and a giant glass of water.
You stare, and then at him, then back at the plate, "You made breakfast."
"You sound surprised."
"You made breakfast."
"You were hungover." You blink because he says it so simply, as if taking care of you is the most natural thing in the world, and maybe that's what gets you. It's how easy it seems for him—the quiet way he shows up. Again, and again. So instead of saying any of that, you pick up a piece of toast. "Thanks." Jack glances up from his coffee, his expression softening almost imperceptibly. "Anytime, Lifeline."
You lower your gaze quickly and focus on your breakfast instead. Unfortunately, that only makes things worse because now you're sitting at Jack's dining table, in Jack's apartment—wearing Jack's shirt.
Eating breakfast, he made for you. The domesticity of it settles wrong inside your conscience. Not because you or him have done anything wrong. But because it feels like you're standing in a place that once belonged to someone else. Your eyes drift toward the bookshelf across the room. A framed photograph sits among the books, showing Jack and his late wife. They’re smiling and happy.
The familiar guilt immediately curls around your throat. You look away, and your appetite suddenly harder to find. Jack notices and asks, "You okay?"
You force a smile, "Mhm." Jack raises an eyebrow. The same look he gives patients who claim their pain is a three out of ten while actively dying. "Lifeline."
You sigh at being caught, again. "It's stupid."
"If you're saying that, it probably isn't."
The concern in his voice makes the guilt worse. You stare down at your plate, picking apart a piece of toast. "You've done so much for me."
Jack frowns immediately, "Okay."
"And I kind of crashed into your life last night."
His confusion visibly increases as he points out the obvious, "You lost your keys."
"I know."
"You called me."
"I know."
Jack waits as you groan softly because this sounds ridiculous out loud. "It just feels like I'm imposing."
Jack's expression softens as he says, "Lifeline." You hate it when he says your nickname like that—as if he's trying to talk you down from something.
"You are not imposing."
You look away, stubbornly mutter, "Still."
"No." His answer comes immediately.
You glance up, and Jack is looking directly at you now. Completely serious. "You called because you needed help. That's what people do."
"But—"
"It's not a burden."
You open your mouth; however, Jack cuts you off again. "You would've done the same thing for me."
And unfortunately—he's right. You would've, without hesitation. At three in the morning, or in the middle of a thunderstorm. Without a second thought.
Jack sees the realization cross your face. A faint smile touches the corner of his mouth.
"Exactly."
You look back down at your plate, suddenly embarrassed. Because he's making it sound so simple. Meanwhile, your brain is spiraling. You risk a glance upward and immediately regret it. Because Jack is leaning against the counter. Coffee mug in hand. Morning sunlight spilling through the kitchen windows behind him. Now that you're sober, you're trying very hard not to notice things. Like the freckles scattered across his shoulders. Or the way years of physical therapy and hospital shifts have built quiet strength into him. Maybe the fact that he looks unfairly good for someone standing barefoot in his kitchen at eight in the morning. Your eyes immediately dart back to your eggs because you’re a coward.
"So." Jack takes another sip of coffee. The amusement in his voice is impossible to miss. "You gonna keep staring at your breakfast like it’s inedible?"
You nearly choke, "What?"
"The eggs."
"Oh." Your face feels suspiciously warm. "They're intimidating."
Jack stares at you, then laughs.
Somehow and somewhere along the way, Jack stopped being your soulmate, the impossible person at the end of a red string, and became Jack. The man who remembers your coffee order, and the one who checked on you when you had COVID, who keeps spare electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at taking care of yourself. The man who made you breakfast because you were hungover, and the man who still loves his wife. The guilt returns instantly. You glance toward the photograph again. Jack follows your gaze this time. His expression changes subtly. The smile faded into something quieter, more thoughtful. Neither of you says anything for a moment. The apartment settles into a small, comfortable, sad silence. The kind that comes from old grief that never fully disappears. Finally, you clear your throat. "I'm sorry."
Jack immediately looks confused. "For what?" You gesture vaguely around the apartment. "Sleeping in your room." His expression somehow becomes even more confused. "Lifeline."
"I'm serious."
"Why?"
You stare at him, "Because it's your room."
"Correct."
"And your bed."
"Also correct."
You narrow your eyes because Jack is enjoying this. The asshole. "Jack."
"What?"
"I feel bad."
His expression softens immediately into a quiet gentleness. "It's fine." He replied. You shake your head, "But—"
"No." His voice is calm. "I wasn't going to wake you up so you could sleep on the couch." You open your mouth. Close it. Open it again. You try to rebut, "But—" Jack points toward your coffee, "You would've fallen asleep sitting upright."
"That's not true."
"It absolutely is."
"It happened one time."
"It happened three times."
"Allegedly."
Jack laughs into his coffee, and for a moment, just a moment, the guilt eases. Because he's looking at you like you're welcome here. As if your presence isn't an intrusion or that helping you wasn't an obligation. It was just something he wanted to do. That realization follows you for the rest of breakfast. Maybe that's why loving him has always felt so dangerous. It's the spare apartment key he keeps on his keyring. The electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at remembering to drink water. The bottle of ibuprofen is waiting on the nightstand before you even wake up. The way he remembers—he doesn't even realize he's doing it.
Eventually, breakfast ends, and you help carry plates to the sink despite Jack's protests. "I'm perfectly capable of washing a plate."
"I know."
"You sounded doubtful."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
Jack rolls his eyes, and you grin.
For a moment, it feels normal. As if this is something the two of you do all the time. Then Jack glances toward the hallway. "I should shower."
Your eyes immediately dart away.
Why are you suddenly embarrassed? You've seen this man covered in blood during trauma activations, and somehow, showering is what's awkward.
"Okay." Jack nods, then pauses, a small frown appearing. "You don't have clothes."
You blink, "Oh." You hadn't actually thought that far ahead. Your club outfit is currently somewhere in the apartment and likely smells like spilled alcohol, perfume, and poor decisions.
Jack disappears down the hallway before you can offer a solution. A moment later he returns carrying a pair of gray sweatpants and another shirt. You immediately recognize the Army logo faded across the front. "Here."
You stare at him, then back at the clothes. "I can't take your clothes."
"You're already wearing my clothes." Unfortunately, he has a point. You glance down at the oversized shirt hanging off your shoulders. Jack's mouth twitches, "The sweats have a drawstring."
"Oh, good."
"They should fit."
"Should?"
"Mostly." You narrow your eyes, but Jack looks entirely unapologetic. "You can keep the shirt." Your heart immediately forgets how to function, breathless, "What?" Jack casually shrugs, "It's old." You can’t fucking breathe, so you settle for, "Oh."
The thought of keeping it, taking it home, and sleeping in it. Smelling his laundry detergent every time you wear it is incredibly intimate. "Thanks."
Across his expression is as soft as his response, "You're welcome." Then he gestures toward the hallway. "I'm gonna shower."
You nod, "Okay."
"The shower chair's in my bathroom, so I'll be in there awhile." The statement is matter-of-fact and unremarkable. The same way he always talks about it. Not because it doesn't matter. But because Jack long ago learned there was no point treating every accommodation like a tragedy. It's simply part of his life—part of him. You nod again, "Take your time."
Jack studies you for a second; he's checking for lingering hangover symptoms. Then apparently decides you'll survive. "I'll drive you home after."
"Sounds good." You agree. There’s a pause before Jack says, "Try not to break anything while I'm gone." Your gasp is immediate, "Rude."
"I know you."
"You wound me."
Jack laughs, then walks down the hallway. A few moments later, you hear the bathroom door close. The apartment becomes quiet—the one that only exists in the homes of people who live alone. You wander slowly—absolutely not snooping. You were observing, there's a difference. The apartment itself feels like Jack. Comfortable, practical, and unpretentious. Bookshelves line one wall of the living room. Medical textbooks, military history, and novels with dog-eared pages. A few framed photographs scattered throughout the apartment—friends, coworkers, and people who matter.
You pause near one shelf. A photograph sits there. Jack and his late wife, when they were younger, were laughing. The picture caught in the middle of a moment rather than a pose. She has her head tipped toward him, and Jack is looking at her like she hung the moon.
Your stomach lurches. Because even now—years later—she still belongs here. Of course she does. This was their home, their life. You gently set the frame back exactly where you found it. Suddenly feeling like an intruder again, your gaze drifts around the apartment. There are signs of her everywhere if you know where to look. It isn’t overwhelming or frozen in time. There’s a photograph, a ceramic mug, and a framed postcard tucked between books. Evidence that she existed, and you hate yourself a little. Because standing here, wrapped in Jack's clothes, waiting for him to finish showering, part of you wishes things were different. Part of you wishes you weren't standing in the aftermath of someone else's great love story. The guilt settles heavily, along with the red string hidden beneath your sleeve. You glance toward the hallway, and the sound of running water. Toward the man you've loved for years. Because no matter how badly you want him—you've never wanted to replace her. Not for a second. Never. You just...wanted him to be happy, even if it was never with you.
The drive back to your apartment is quiet, but not uncomfortable. You sit curled into the passenger seat, your folded dress resting on your lap alongside your heels. The sleeves of Jack's old Army shirt hang past your wrists, and the sweatpants are too big with the drawstring pulled tight enough to keep them from falling. You feel ridiculous, like a child playing dress-up. Outside the window, Pittsburgh drifts by in shades of gray. You keep your eyes fixed on it. Because every time you glance at Jack, your heart hurts. Especially after last night… the makeup wipes, the hug, his hand on your face, honey. You don't trust yourself anymore, not even a little. Beside you, Jack steals another glance. You're unusually quiet, and that alone is enough to make him nervous. Normally, even hungover, you'd be talking, making terrible jokes, or complaining about your headache.
Instead, you're staring out the window like you're already somewhere else. His fingers tighten slightly on the steering wheel as he asks, "You okay?" You nod immediately, humming, "Mhm."
A lie that Jack recognizes instantly, but he lets it go for now. When he finally pulls up in front of your apartment building, neither of you moves immediately. The truck idles softly as silence stretches, then you suddenly unbuckle. Before Jack can process what's happening, you lean across the center console and wrap your arms around him. The hug catches him completely off guard, and for a moment, he freezes. Then instinct takes over. His arms come around you automatically. Your face presses briefly against his shoulder. Jack's heart does something strange and painful. Because it feels like goodbye, and he has absolutely no idea why.
"Hey." His voice comes out softer than intended. You squeeze him once before you let go, because if you hold on any longer, you won't be able to leave.
"Thanks," you whisper. Your eyes sting immediately, but you force a smile anyway. "For everything." The words shouldn't sound final, but they do. "Anytime, honey." The endearment slips out effortlessly and naturally now. Neither of you acknowledges it. Jack studies your face, trying to figure out what's wrong, to understand why you suddenly look like you're trying not to cry. So he asks carefully, "I'll see you later at work, yeah?"
Your throat tightens while you nod. "Mhm." It's not technically a lie. The second you step out of the truck, you don't look back. You can't. Because if you do, you'll stay. So you practically run inside your apartment building.
Leaving Jack staring after you, confused, worried, and somehow strangely unsettled.
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — DAY
Dana and Lena listen quietly. The three of you sit in an empty conference room before shift change. You make it approximately halfway through your explanation before you start crying. Not graceful tears, pretty tears, but the ugly kind. The tears you've spent years swallowing, "I'm sorry."
Dana immediately reaches for you, "Hey." You shake your head, "I'm sorry."
"Hon." Dana rubs circles against your back, her voice gentle, maternal. "Why are you apologizing?" You laugh through your tears because the answer feels obvious and impossible. "Because I'm in love with him."
The room falls silent as Lena and Dana exchange a glance. A look. One that says they already knew. Everyone always knows except the people involved. "It's just for a little while," you whisper while you wipe furiously at your face. "I just need some space." Dana's expression softens. She asks, "And what about your heart?"
That's the problem, isn't it? Your heart—your stupid, stubborn heart. You stare down at your hands, "Until it relearns how to stop beating for him." Then quietly you hear Lena ask, "So you're not gonna tell him?" You shake your head immediately, "I can't."
Because how do you tell someone that you've been tethered to them for seven years? That you've loved them through a marriage, grief, and loss. Through healing. How do you tell someone that? Especially when he never chose you. So you don't.
THREE DAYS LATER…
PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT
Three days later, Jack notices immediately, the second he walks into the ED, you're gone. No coffee sitting beside your workstation and sarcastic comments from Central—there’s no you. He finds Lena first and asks, "Where is she?" Lena doesn't even look up from her charting, "Where's who?” Jack stares, "Lifeline."
"Oh." She clicks something on her computer. "Day shift." His stomach drops, "What?"
"She switched."
"When?" Lena shrugs at him, "A few days ago."
Jack blinks slowly. "Why?"
"Ask Dana." Suddenly, Lena becomes very interested in her chart.
A week passes, then two, and Jack begins losing his mind. Because you are avoiding him, deliberately and aggressively. You leave before he arrives, or arrive before he leaves. You disappear down hallways and take lunch at different times. Find literally any excuse not to be alone with him. The few times he manages to catch sight of you—you smile and wave.
Then vanish again, like smoke, as if you're afraid of him, and that hurts. Because Jack keeps replaying that night. The club, his apartment, the hug, and the morning after. What did he miss? What did he do? Did he cross a line? Did he make you uncomfortable? Did he somehow ruin the one friendship he can't bear to lose? Every answer leads nowhere, and every day you drift a little farther away. Three weeks later, during shift change, Jack finally spots you. Walking quickly through the corridor, badge swinging from the clip of your scrub pocket, and iced coffee in hand.
He immediately changes direction. "Lifeline." You freeze for a second, then keep walking. Fuck. Jack follows and calls after you, "Lifeline." Your pace somehow gets faster, and now he's genuinely irritated and hurt. "Hey."
Finally, you stop, turning around, with a careful smile already in place, too careful. But not him, never him, not until now. "Hi, Jack." The distance between you feels enormous as he asks, "What is going on?" Nothing. Everything. You force a shrug, "Nothing."
That’s bullshit, and Jack knows it's bullshit. You know he knows, but neither of you says it. Then somebody calls your name from down the hallway, and relief floods your face at escaping him. The realization dawns on him like a punch.
"I gotta go."
"Lifeline—"
"See you around." Then you're gone, again. Practically running.
That's when it happens—Jack stares after you, heart pounding, confused, angry, and hurt. Suddenly—pain flares around his wrist. It’s sharp and hot. He physically flinches, "What the—"
A red thread appears beneath his skin, bright and impossible, but all too real. Jack freezes as the world tilts. No. No. No. The string winds itself slowly around his wrist. As it has always belonged there, it was simply waiting.
His breath catches because he knows what it is; everybody knows what it is. His pulse begins hammering. The thread stretches down the hallway, past nurses, residents, and stretchers, straight toward—You. Jack stumbles, his hand slamming against the wall to keep himself upright as the hallway blurs and his vision tunnels.
No. No, that's impossible. His heart pounds so hard it hurts. The red string glows softly between his wrist and yours, unbroken. Years… all these years. Every conversation, every shift, every cup of coffee, and every moment. Every time you'd looked at him and then looked away, or when you'd disappeared when things became too close. All the times you'd chosen distance. The truth crashes into him all at once. You knew. Oh God. You knew, and somewhere down the hallway—completely unfazed—you kept walking.
While Jack stands frozen in place, one hand braced against the wall, staring at the impossible thread connecting him to the woman he's been desperately trying not to admit he's fallen in love with.
2025
6:00 PM
PTMC, CENTRAL WORK AREA — DAY
The emergency department shifts from busy to catastrophic in less than thirty seconds. One moment, people are charting the next—every television screen in the department lights up with breaking news.
There’s an active shooter at PittFest—mass casualty incident. Every healthcare worker in the room recognizes it instantly. The moment before impact… before disaster arrives.
"Hey, what's going on?" McKay asks.
Robby strides into Central, already moving and planning. Carrying the weight of what is coming. "Mass casualty at PittFest."
Samira looks up sharply, "How many victims?"
"We don't know." Robby's face is grim. "Expect the worst.” A terrible silence settles, while someone else immediately reaches for a phone. "Did the police find David?" McKay asks. Robby shakes his head, then raises his voice, "Okay, everybody, listen up."
Every head turns to pay attention to Robby.
"There is an active shooter at PittFest. As the nearest trauma center, we are going to be getting the majority of the victims." The room goes completely still. "We don't know yet how many we're getting, but we are instituting hospital-wide emergency protocols. We need to move every patient out of here. Either home, upstairs, or Family Medicine. Call your loved ones now if you need to."
Robby glances toward the windows, toward the city. Towards the disaster unfolding somewhere beyond it. "I can guarantee cell service will soon be overwhelmed. Eat something. Stay hydrated. Use the bathroom while there's time and meet back here for a full briefing in five minutes."
Then his gaze lands on someone entering through the ambulance bay doors, relief flashes across his face.
"Brother." Robby exhales. "I'm so fucking glad to see you." Jack, carrying his backpack and wearing his black scrubs, briefly hugs Robby, "Heard it on the scanner."
Jack drops his bag onto a workstation. "How many are we expecting?"
"I don't know." Robby's expression darkens. "But it doesn't sound good."
After placing his things down, Jack looks up directly at you. The breath leaves your lungs. Already focused entirely on you.
Your stomach drops. Oh no. No. No. No. He knows. The realization slams into you so hard it feels physical. You don't know how or when. But something in his expression tells you immediately.
He knows about the string—your secret. The thing you've spent seven years burying. Your pulse begins hammering, and blood rushes up to your ears. Across Central, Jack doesn't look away; his jaw flexes, hard, angry. You know that look—you've seen it directed at negligent parents, reckless drivers, people who made choices that hurt others.
Five minutes. That's all you have before the briefing. Before the entire hospital erupts into chaos. Apparently five minutes is all Jack needs. The second he catches you alone, a hand closes firmly around your elbow. "Lifeline." You freeze, your heart immediately dropping into your stomach. "Jack—"
"We need to talk." The words come out low and controlled. He steers you toward an empty supply room. A narrow space lined with IV fluids and sterile procedure kits. The door swings shut behind you, and the silence is deafening.
You turn toward him, trying to keep your face neutral, and completely fall apart. "What's going on?" The question sounds pathetic even to your own ears. Jack stares, and for a moment, he says nothing. Which makes everything worse, because his eyes are furious.
Furious at being hurt and at being lied to. At realizing something important happened without him knowing. His jaw clenches, "You knew." Your vision immediately blurs, "Jack—"
"You knew." The repetition is softer, devastated. You feel your tears threatening already.
"Don't." Your voice cracks. "Don't look at me like that." Something flashes across his face—pain, but then anger returns to cover it. "So what was the plan?" His words come out sharp.
"Jack—"
"What?" His voice rises, years of confusion finally boiling over. "What were you doing?"
You flinch, and Jack immediately hates himself for it, but he can't stop, not now. "Were you just waiting?" The accusation hangs between you, ugly, unfair, and born entirely from hurt. "Were you waiting for your chance?"
Your eyes widen as the tears come instantly, and suddenly you're angry too. Years of restraint snap all at once.
"No." The word echoes off the walls. "No." You step toward him, furious, heartbroken, and shaking.
"I buried it." Your voice breaks. "I buried every part of it." Jack freezes as you keep going, "You don't get to stand there and act like I wanted this." The tears are falling freely now. It’s hot and humiliating. "I buried every chance of loving you so deep I could barely breathe around it."
The room goes silent as Jack stares while you choke on the next words, because they're true, every single one. "I buried my wanting for you." Your voice cracks again. "And don't you dare accuse me of waiting." The anger disappears, leaving only raw, ancient grief. "You don't get to accuse me of that when I respected it."
Jack's face changes back to confusion and regret. But you're not finished, "I respected her." The words nearly destroy you while you wipe at your face, failing miserably. "I respected both of you."
A photograph flashes through your mind. Then she laughed in the department, bringing Jack lunch, loving him. Being loved by him, the woman you'd genuinely cared about. The woman who had never done anything except be kind to you.
"She was brilliant." You laugh bitterly as another tear slips free. "Beautiful. And I knew I'd never measure up."
Jack physically recoils, as if you'd struck him. "What?" The word comes out strangled. You look away because you can't bear seeing his face. "I know that."
"No." Pain flashes across his expression. "No, you don't." You laugh again, broken, "I do." Then quietly, you add, "The first time I saw the end of the string." Jack goes completely still at your admission.
"The first time I saw it unfinished." Your voice drops, barely above a whisper. "I knew I was going to lose you either way."
Silence—absolute silence. Jack feels like the floor has vanished beneath him, because suddenly, he understands. All those years, smiles, retreats, your careful boundaries. How you'd chosen distance instead of possibility. You weren't waiting. You were grieving the entire time.
The supply room door suddenly swings open, and Robby appears, already halfway through speaking. "Abbot, I need—"
Then he stops, immediately, because you're crying, and Jack looks wrecked. The tension in the room is thick enough to choke on.
"...Whoa." Robby looks between both of you a few times, then decides he absolutely does not want whatever this is. "What the hell is—"
You move first, past Robby and Jack. Past all of it. Your shoulder brushes the doorframe as you leave. You don't stop, and can’t look back. Because if you do, you'll fall apart. While Jack just stands there, watching you go, understanding too late. For the first time in seven years, understanding exactly how much it must have hurt. Then, somewhere outside the room—an overhead page sounds. The first ambulances are arriving, signaling that the mass casualty has begun. However, the conversation isn't over. Not even close.
7:00 PM
CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT
All at once, the emergency department is already overflowing. Trauma bays filled, hallways lined with stretchers, and blood smeared across floors that Environmental Services doesn't have time to clean. The overhead speakers haven't stopped paging for nearly twenty minutes. Victims keep coming. Gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries, and crush injuries from the stampede that followed.
The air feels thick with adrenaline and fear. Every single person in the department is running on instinct, training, and experience.
You haven't looked at Jack since the supply room, not really. You can feel him occasionally, like a gravitational force somewhere at the edge of your awareness. A pull you refuse to acknowledge. Every time your eyes accidentally find his across Central, you immediately look away. You don't have the luxury of falling apart right now, because people are dying, you know that, and so does Jack.
So, whatever happened between you has been shoved aside by necessity.
"Let's go!" Langdon's voice cuts through the noise. Another victim on a gurney in Central. Male, approximately late twenties, multiple injuries, semi-conscious, and blood soaking through his shirt. Samira immediately moves to the stretcher, "Who do you have?"
"Semi-conscious. Responds only to pain. Decent carotid."
"Strip him." Mateo reaches for trauma shears, and so does Tim, "Let's go." The team descends immediately, beginning to cut clothing, assessing injuries, checking his airway, and breathing. Everything is moving with practiced efficiency. Then—something feels wrong. You don't know why, it’s just a feeling. A prickling sensation along the back of your neck.
The patient suddenly jerks, and the nurses yelp. A hand disappears beneath the shredded remains of his shirt. Langdon freezes, then shouts. "Whoa!" Everything happens at once.
"Gun!" The word detonates through Central. "Gun! He's going for his gun!"
Every person in the room reacts instantly; some hit the floor, and others dive behind workstations. The patient somehow manages to yank a handgun free. His eyes are wild, disoriented, and terrified. The muzzle swings wildly across the room and lands directly toward Robby and Jack.
Time slows for you as you watch. Later, you'll never be able to explain why you moved, whether it was instinct, training, love… or something much darker. A part of you wonders if maybe you were simply tired—tired of carrying this, of loving him, maybe of being afraid. You never figure it out, because your body moves before your brain does.
One second, you're standing near Central, the next you're running.
The gun fires, and the sound is deafening. A violent crack that echoes through the department. For one suspended moment—nobody moves or breathes. Then pain explodes through you, white-hot, blinding.
You stagger as your knees immediately buckle while the floor rushes upward. Somewhere nearby, people are screaming while others are shouting for security. The world becomes noise, blurred shapes, blood—too much blood. Then, you hear Jack scream your name, and it tears straight out of him. Raw, animal, nothing like you've ever heard before. The resident beside him barely has time to react before Jack is already moving. He’s running—ignoring everyone and everything. None of it matters, not anymore. Because you're on the floor, and you're bleeding. Suddenly, the worst thing Jack has ever imagined is happening right in front of him.Again.
He drops to his knees beside you, not caring that his stump is aching, hands immediately searching, assessing, locating the wound, trying to stop the bleeding while SWAT restrains the man who shot you. His trauma training takes over automatically, even while the rest of him is breaking apart.
"Pressure!" Somebody throws him gauze, Jack slams it hard against the wound. Too much blood—so much fucking blood, and the sight makes his stomach turn. "No."
Your vision swims, and you can barely focus. But somehow—somehow—Jack is all you see. Always him, maybe it was always going to be him. His face is pale, terrified—more terrified than you've ever seen him, and somehow that hurts worse than the bullet.
You manage a weak laugh, and blood touches your lips. Jack immediately hates the sound, "Don't." Your eyes find his, and for the first time in years, you stop hiding. "It was painful."
Jack freezes, "Lifeline—"
"When you looked at me." Your voice trembles, blood continues soaking through the gauze. "When you smiled at me."
"No." His hands shake, just slightly, but you feel it. "When you believed in me." Tears blur your vision. "It hurt."
Jack's face completely crumples because now he understands all of it.
"It tore me apart." The words barely make it out, and an unfiltered sob escapes him. Because you're dying, and he just found you. He spent seven years standing beside you without seeing it. "No." His voice breaks. "No, no, no."
Someone is calling for Trauma One and bringing a stretcher. The department is moving around him. But Jack doesn't care, because the world has narrowed to you—only you.
"I just got you." The words rip from his throat, his eyes shine, desperate, furious, and every bit terrified. "I just got you." Your breath catches. You love him, you always will. So maybe—maybe honesty won't kill you now. "I love you."
Jack closes his eyes, as if the words physically hurt. You smile weakly, doubling down, "I love you, Jack Abbot."
Silence for a moment, then, firmly, "No." The answer comes instantly, violently, as if he's rejecting reality itself. "No." His forehead presses briefly against yours. "You're not doing this."
Tears slide down his face, but he doesn't even notice. "You hear me?" His voice cracks. "You're not doing this to me."
The stretcher arrives, and Robby appears, blood on his gloves. Panic hidden beneath professionalism. "Jack." Nothing… Jack doesn't move. "Jack." Still nothing.
"Abbot!" Finally, Jack looks up, and Robby immediately understands. Oh. Oh no. "We need Trauma One." Robby's voice softens. "Now."
Jack nods once, then helps lift you onto the stretcher himself. Refuses to let go or step away. He refuses to leave your side as they race down the hallway. Trauma One is already being prepared. Blood products, thoracotomy tray, massive transfusion protocol—Everything and anything. Whatever it takes.
Dana meets them at the door, and one look at Jack's face tells her everything, every awful piece of it. "Oh, honey." Jack doesn't even hear her; his eyes never leave you, not once. Dana steps close, careful. "Jack." No response from him, so she tries again, "You need to let them work."
His jaw tightens, "No."
"Jack."
"No." His voice breaks again. Because he knows—he knows exactly how bad this is. Knows every possible complication, terrible outcome, and statistic. Every nightmare, and he cannot survive another one. Not you, God, please, especially not after all this—after finally finding you.
The trauma team begins crowding around the bed. Voices overlap, orders fly, blood pressure dropping, airway concerns, surgical consult from Garcia, massive transfusion. Yet, Jack refuses to move, standing beside your stretcher, his hand wrapped around yours. As if letting go might somehow allow death to take you, or sheer stubbornness can keep you here.
As if love might finally be enough this time around.
PTMC, ICU — DAY
The surgery lasts hours—too many hours, long enough for the adrenaline to burn away, and for exhaustion to settle into everyone's bones. Long enough for Jack to memorize every crack in the ICU waiting room floor.
The bullet had done catastrophic damage. A through-and-through gunshot wound with massive internal bleeding. Multiple units of blood transfused. Emergency surgery. Complications halfway through that had nearly sent the entire operating room into a panic. At one point, Robby had physically forced Jack to sit down because he looked seconds away from collapsing. Jack couldn't remember most of it afterward, only fragments. Your blood on his hands. Your voice. I love you, Jack Abbot.
The terror of watching your blood pressure disappear from the monitor. The awful realization that he might lose you before he'd ever gotten the chance to tell you—I love you too. But somehow, you survive. The surgeons manage to stop the bleeding and repair the damage. They brought you back. It feels less like medicine and more like a miracle.
Three days later, you're still asleep, intubated, and hooked to enough machines to make the room hum softly around you. But you're alive, and right now, that's enough.
Jack hasn't left at all. Dana, Robby, Lena, and even Whitaker—all of them fail. Because every time someone tells him to go home, he looks at you lying in that hospital bed and refuses. The man is impossible when he decides on something, and he decided he was staying.
So he stays, wearing scrubs more often than not. Surviving almost entirely on hospital coffee and vending machine food, and sleeping in the uncomfortable chair beside your bed. If you could see him, you'd probably yell at him. Tell him he's being ridiculous, and that he should shower. To stop looking like a man who personally lost a fight against a tornado. Unfortunately, you're unconscious, which means nobody can stop him.
The red string remains, that impossible thread winding around his wrist before disappearing into yours, completely visible now. Neither of you is hiding anymore. Sometimes Jack simply stares at it, as if he's afraid it'll disappear—a chance he'll wake up and discover this was some cruel fever dream. Because for years he believed he'd had his soulmate, then he lost her. And now—now the universe has somehow handed him another sacred thing. A second chance he never expected. One he's terrified of losing before it even begins.
The ICU room is quiet that afternoon as sunlight spills through the window. Your face is pale against the white pillow. Your hair is messy, and there's bruising along your neck from procedures, tape securing lines, and dressings. Evidence of how close death came for you. Jack reaches forward, his fingers brushing gently through your hair. The movement reverent, as if touching something precious. Something fragile and almost lost.
His thumb traces softly across your cheek. "You scared the hell out of me." His voice is rough, sleep-deprived, and broken around the edges. You don't answer, but that never stops him.
The door opens quietly as Robby steps inside, coffee in one hand and concern written all over his face. He pauses immediately, taking in the scene. Jack slumped beside your bed, wearing his scrubs, faintly stained with blood—your blood. His hand wrapped around yours, and the red string was visible between them. For a moment, Robby says nothing, simply watches. Understanding settling over him piece by piece. Then finally, he asks, "How's she doing?"
Jack glances up. His eyes are bloodshot and exhausted. "Stable." The word comes out cautious. Because saying it too loudly might somehow jinx everything.
Robby nods, steps closer, looking down at you, at the monitors, then at Jack. A realization flickers across his face. "Is she also..." His voice softens. "...your soulmate?"
The question hangs quietly between them, and Jack's gaze immediately drops to your hand. To the red thread wrapped around both wrists. He can't speak for a little while, then he nods once.
"I think so." The words sound ridiculous even now. "I didn't think..." His voice catches as he looks down at you. At the woman he'd spent seven years loving without understanding why it felt different. Not understanding why losing your friendship hurt more than it should, or why seeing you happy mattered so much. Why he'd kept showing up, again and again. "I didn't think it was possible."
The rRobby remains silent, letting him continue as Jack swallows. "I didn't think it would happen to me." The confession comes out almost embarrassed—he's admitting something shameful. Robby exhales slowly, nods. "There've been a few reports."
Jack glances up.
"A few studies." Robby shrugs. "The theory is that some soulmate bonds don't form immediately." His eyes drift toward the red string, toward your intertwined hands. "Sometimes they form after loss."
The room falls quiet, neither of them says the obvious thing. That his late had been Jack's soulmate too, and loving her had been real, complete, and true. That none of this erased her.
Jack looks back at your sleeping face, the rise and fall of your chest, and the steady rhythm on the monitor. Alive and still here. His fingers slide gently through your hair again, careful not to disturb anything, as his hand cups your cheek. The gesture impossibly tender. Robby immediately looks away, because some moments aren't meant for witnesses.
Jack leans forward, pressing a kiss against your forehead, lingering there for a second, eyes closed and relieved. Terrified and very in love. When he finally pulls back, his thumb brushes across your skin. And for the first time since the shooting, a small smile appears. Fragile, hopeful, like he's allowing himself to believe it. Just a little.
"Come back to me, Lifeline." His voice is barely above a whisper. The red string glows softly between your wrists, and Jack squeezes your hand gently, as if you're already listening. As if somewhere beneath the machines and medications and healing wounds, you can hear him. Maybe, for the first time in a very long time, he isn't asking fate for anything. He's only asking for you.
PTMC, ICU — DAY
The first thing you become aware of is discomfort, not pain, well, not yet anyway, just wrongness. A strange pressure lodged in your throat—something foreign. Your eyelids feel impossibly heavy, as if someone glued them shut. The effort required to open them feels monumental. Slowly, painstakingly—you manage it, and the world arrives in fragments. White ceiling, muted sunlight, the rhythmic beeping of monitors, and the steady hiss of oxygen.
A hospital room—your hospital room, and immediately your nursing brain starts putting pieces together. ICU, you're in the ICU, which means—Oh. Oh no, the shooting. Memory crashes back all at once: the gun, Jack, blood, Trauma One. I love you, Jack Abbot.
Your eyes widen immediately as panic flares. Because there is definitely a tube down your throat, a ventilator tube, and suddenly every survival instinct in your body starts screaming. You try to move—a mistake, as pain explodes through your abdomen. Pain that says somebody has spent several hours trying very hard to keep you alive. A strangled sound leaves you; your heart monitor immediately speeds up.
Then you feel it, a hand, wrapped around yours. You turn your head, slowly, and there he is… Jack. Curled awkwardly in the chair beside your bed, wearing his black scrubs, asleep. His head was resting against folded arms near your mattress, one hand tangled with yours, the red string winding quietly between your wrists. For a moment, you just stare because he looks awful. His curls are a mess, dark circles shadow his eyes, his jaw is covered in stubble, his scrubs are wrinkled because he hasn't slept properly in days, and he hasn't left. This whole time, he stayed. Your fingers twitch, weakly, barely enough movement to count. Then you squeeze his hand.
Jack jerks awake instantly, years of emergency medicine, and years of sleeping lightly. His head snaps upward, disoriented and confused. Then his eyes land on yours, and the entire world stops. For a moment, he doesn't move or breathe. Doesn't seem capable of either. He just stares, afraid you're another dream, or another hallucination born from exhaustion.
"Hey." The word comes out rough, barely audible, and your eyes immediately fill with tears. Because he's crying, relief floods his face so quickly it looks painful. His hand tightens around yours.
"My Lifeline." His voice cracks completely, and suddenly, tears are sliding down his cheeks, unashamed. Jack laughs once, a choked sound halfway between a sob and a prayer. "Oh, my God."
You try to answer, then immediately regret it, because the tube is still there. Panic spikes again.
Jack notices instantly, "Hey." His hand cups the side of your face, gentle and grounding. "Hey, hey." His thumb brushes your cheek, "You're okay." Your breathing becomes faster, the ventilator alarms immediately begin protesting. "You're okay." Jack is already reaching for the call button, never taking his eyes off you. "You're okay."
Within seconds, the room fills with people. Garcia arrives first. Followed by respiratory therapy, a nurse, and half the ICU, apparently. "Well, look at that." Garcia's grin is immediate. "About time."
You want to roll your eyes, but unfortunately, you still have a breathing tube. The respiratory therapist immediately begins assessing and following commands. Checking your neurological status. Making sure you're strong enough for extubation. You squeeze hands, follow fingers with your eyes, nod appropriately. All while Jack hovers nearby. Trying desperately not to interfere, and failing miserably.
"She's ready." The therapist glances toward Garcia, and then Garcia nods. "Let's do it."
Jack immediately moves closer, instinctively. Like he physically cannot help himself. The ventilator disconnects, the securing device is removed, and the respiratory therapist gives instructions. You barely hear any of them; your entire focus is on the tube. Then—it's out. Immediately, you cough violently because your throat burns. Every breath feels strange and uncomfortable, but you're breathing on your own.
Jack is already helping support you upright, one arm behind your shoulders, the other holding a cup with ice chips. "Easy." His voice is impossibly soft. "Slow down."
You cough again, eyes watering. Jack looks ready to fight somebody on your behalf. Possibly the tube or the entire ICU. Eventually, the coughing settles enough for you to breathe comfortably, and the monitors stabilize, everyone visibly relaxing.
Garcia steps forward, professional mode fully activated. "Okay. The surgery went well." She begins carefully. "You sustained a gunshot wound to the abdomen." Jack's jaw tightens visibly as she continues, "There was significant internal bleeding." Garcia continues. "We had to perform an emergency exploratory laparotomy."
Your nurse brain immediately fills in blanks, searching for damage, complications, and probabilities. Garcia notices this and says, "We repaired injuries to your small bowel and controlled several bleeding vessels."
Stable—the most beautiful word in medicine. You glance toward Jack; he's staring at the floor, hearing the details physically hurts. Garcia notices that, too, a tiny smile appears. One that says she understands far more than she's commenting on.
"Recovery's going to suck." You manage a weak laugh; the sound comes out raspy. Garcia points immediately. "There she is. Don't make me regret taking that tube out."
For the first time since waking, you actually smile. Garcia gathers her chart and steps toward the door, then pauses, looking between you. Then Jack, the red string, then back again.
"Oh." A knowing expression crosses her face. "Right."
Jack immediately looks uncomfortable, which is almost impressive considering everything that's happened.
Garcia grins. "Try not to stress her out." Then she points at you. "And try not to get shot again."
The door closes behind her, and the room suddenly feels much quieter. Much smaller and more intimate. Silence settles; neither of you quite knows what to say. Because there are too many things, seven years' worth.
Jack remains seated beside the bed, his hand never leaving yours, not once. He's afraid the second he lets go, you'll disappear again.
Your throat hurts—everything hurts, but somehow none of it matters right now. Because Jack is looking at you, really looking at you, and there are tears still caught in his eyelashes. Evidence of how terrified he'd been, your fingers tighten weakly around his. "Hi." The word comes out hoarse, barely audible. A wet laugh escapes him, disbelieving, and relieved. "Hi."
His thumb brushes across your knuckles, again and again. As if he needs the contact—he needs proof. Then Jack lowers his head, pressing his forehead gently against your joined hands, his eyes closing. Breathing shakily, and in that moment, you realize he was just as afraid of losing you as you'd always been of losing him.
Finally, Jack swallows hard, then asks quietly, "How long?" You know exactly what he means, not the shooting or the string. All of it. You stare down at your intertwined hands. At the red thread winding around both wrists, then back at him, and answer honestly. "Since my first day.”
Jack blinks, once and twice. He genuinely thought he'd misheard you, "Your first day?" You nod, a sad laugh escaping. "Yeah."
His mouth opens, then closes, and opens again. The physician in him is clearly attempting to process impossible information. Unfortunately for him, he's currently operating as a man in love, not a doctor, which means none of this is going well.
"Seven years?" The words come out strangled, and you give a tiny nod. Jack leans back in his chair, looking dizzy. "Jesus Christ."
A weak laugh escapes you. "That was more or less my reaction too." His hand tightens around yours to reassure himself.
"Why didn't you tell me?" The question is quiet, not accusing anymore, only hurt. He’s trying to understand. You look away first, toward the window. Because this part is harder. "You were married." The words are simple, obvious, and true, Jack's expression immediately softens.
"You loved her." You smile sadly. "Of course you did." Because he had, you'd seen it, every day, in every smile or phone call, at the mere mention of her.
"I wasn't going to be the woman who showed up and destroyed that." Your voice trembles. "I couldn't. It's why I never said anything." A tear slips free, and you don't bother wiping it away.
"I respected her too much." Your laugh cracks. "And honestly?" You finally look at him, unwaveringly, you admit, "I loved you too much.” Jack closes his eyes, processing the truth of it all. "I knew you were happy." You smile weakly. "I thought… I thought if I couldn't be the person you loved, then I'd settle for being someone you trusted."
Jack stares at you, completely speechless. Suddenly, every memory makes sense, every retreat or careful boundary. You chose distance over possibility. You weren't waiting. You weren't hoping for his wife to die. Goddamit. The thought makes him sick now. You were protecting him—protecting both of them, at the expense of yourself, for seven years.
"That's insane." The words slip out before he can stop them. You blink, offended. "Excuse me?" Jack actually laughs, a wet, exhausted sound. "You loved me for seven years."
"You make it sound like a disease." You frowned.
"It kind of is."
You point weakly, "I got shot."
"Exactly." For the first time since waking up—you both laugh. The sound fades slowly, leaving only the truth behind. Jack shifts closer, his chair scrapes softly against the floor, until he's sitting right beside the bed, close to you, so that there's nowhere left to hide.
"I need you to understand something." His voice lowers, gentler now, and more vulnerable than you've ever heard it. Jack looks down briefly, then back up. "She was my soulmate." The words settle softly between you, simply true and not at all cruel. You nod, because you know—you've always known.
"I loved her." His eyes shine, "I'll always love her."
You squeeze his hand, "I know." Jack exhales shakily, then continues, "But somewhere along the way..." His voice falters, and you can’t recall if you've ever seen him this scared. His thumb brushes your cheek, the same way it did the night you almost died. "You became my favorite part of the day. The first person I wanted to talk to." Another stroke of his thumb. "The person I looked for first." His eyes never leave yours. "And when you started avoiding me..."
He laughs once, humorless and every bit painful. "It felt like somebody was ripping pieces off me." The confession steals the air from your lungs, and Jack leans forward slightly, and your heart starts racing.
"I thought I was losing my mind." A tiny smile appears at the corners of his mouth. "Turns out I was just in love with you."
Everything disappears—leaving just him and tears blur your vision instantly.
"Oh." It's all you can manage. Jack smiles, soft, beautiful, it’s entirely his. "Yeah."
Suddenly, you're crying. Because after seven years—after all that grief and silence and fear—he chose you. Not because of the string or fate. Or because destiny told him to. But because he loved you.
"You idiot." Your words wobble and Jack laughs, "I know."
"You absolute idiot."
"I've been told."
You laugh through your tears, and somehow, he wipes them away before they can fall. The gentlest touch imaginable, as if you're something precious. Then his forehead rests against yours, and neither of you speaks. You don't need to. The red string glows softly between your wrists, a silent witness, and for the first time—it doesn't feel like a chain. It feels like a beginning.
Jack's gaze drops briefly to your mouth, then immediately back to your eyes. Giving you every opportunity to stop him. Every opportunity to say no. You don't. Not even a little.
So, he kisses you, softly, as if you're something holy. Something he spent seven years searching for without realizing it. His hand cups your cheek, while yours finds his wrist. Right where the string wraps around him, the kiss is gentle and tender. A promise rather than a fire.
When he finally pulls back, neither of you moves very far, foreheads touching, breathing the same air. Jack smiles, the kind of smile you've spent years secretly collecting. "Hi."
A laugh escapes you, "Hi." Then his eyes soften, filled with something warm enough to last a lifetime. "There you are."
After seven years of loving him in silence—you finally get to stay.
End Notes:
Where do I even begin? This idea has been cooking in my head for MONTHS. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I wanted this story to go. But then you know how things just suddenly click and fall into place? That’s exactly what happened.
It was absolutely euphoric—once I got the plot beats down, I just couldn’t stop writing lol.
I wanted you, the reader, to know how much you respected Jack’s wife and that you weren’t trying to replace her.
Also.. do you get it? Lifeline = Line = String…. Ha ha ha. You are his Line…
Everyone blame Noah Kahan for making me cry to Orbiter.
LOWKEY, wasn’t expecting a lot of people to read this…
eleven years ago, robby had a fling with a first year medical student, only for her to drop out and disappear without even a note. forward to present day, and a precocious 10 year old has shown up in the pitt demanding to see her dad, a photo of a familiar face gracing her phone screen.
series cw: mdni. kidfic, fem!reader, age gap (early 20s/30s, early 40s/50s), miscommunication, exes to idiots in love, romcom nonsense, medical/legal/scholastic/child-rearing inaccuracies, overuse of the word puppy, all lowercase. no physical reader description other than shorter than robby, no physical child description other than having curly hair (unspecified from whose side) and robby’s eyes. additional cw on each chapter. pics just for vibes. (ao3)
You are the best thing that has ever happened to Robby. You are everything he could ever want: sweet, patient, understanding, on top of being the most stunning person he's ever laid eyes on. The unfortunate tradeoff is that... well, you drive him insane (you think a salt lamp has healing properties).
Michael Robinavitch x Reader | 1k+ | cw: gender neutral!reader, quack!reader, rage baiting as a love language, stressed!robby, no one save him fr he's exactly where he wants to be, fluff, typos, etc.
A/N: some ENABLER, not naming names, keeps sending me TikToks of him. I just thought of this and couldn't stop LAUGHING. hopefully yall laugh too, and if you do please comment/reblog/inbox me because I wanna know what you think cos I literally don't go here | crossposted on ao3
Tagging: @roguelov who is definitely NOT an enabler
His shift had been long, and Robby was more than relieved to come home to his bed, to you. Relieved he was when he saw your sleeping form on the bed, nuzzling into a pillow he knew was a substitute for his missing form.
He pads through the bedroom with nothing but the flickery light of the lamp on your bedside table, the same one he keeps forgetting to replace. He changes quietly then sighs deeply as he pulls the pillow out of your arms with about as much care as he would an open wound he was stitching up.
Once he is in his rightful place against you, your arms tighten around him, as if you can tell he's there even in your subconscious. He believes you do. He almost instantly falls asleep when he closes his eyes.
The next thing he knows, he's reaching out for a body that was no longer beside him.
Robby groans as his eyes squint open to confirm what he had dreadfully already known: you were already awake. He scratches his eyes rougher than he ought to and snatches a pillow, hugging it tightly against himself.
He stays like this for a few minutes before sighing. It's just not the same.
He groans as he decides to wake up. He groans on his way to the bathroom. He groans as he follows the scent of coffee to the kitchen.
"You're not supposed to be awake yet," he groans again, arms circling around you as you wash dishes.
He feels you chuckle against him as he bends over to press his forehead on your shoulder.
"I'm supposed to be sleeping in for the day," he grumbles, "doctor's orders."
You push him back with your bum, "then go to sleep, doctor."
He whimpers at how you brush up against him. His arms tighten around you, forcing you to stop what you're doing. He presses his beard against the crook of your neck, "yeah, right."
You squeal when he begins to drag you back, hands woefully reaching for the tap to close it, "baby, stop."
He grumbles, borderline growls, "I find that offensive."
You can't help but laugh as he incessantly drags you back, though you knew he wasn't actually using his full strength to do so.
"I need you in bed to be able to sleep!"
"Ha!" you scoff, "sleep, says Pinocchio!"
"I won't be lying if I sleep after I pin you down and fu—"
The door bell ringing and the knocking on your front door make both of you go still.
"My package!" you say, swatting your captor off, who then reluctantly releases you.
You run off to get your package, and something in the way you jump a little makes him suspicious of whatever it is you got delivered. Robby takes the opportunity to pour himself a cup of coffee, though his eyes quickly flicker back to you. He forfeits a sip from his steaming drink when you very giddily run back to him with a largish box.
You set the parcel down, the arrow on its side behind a FRAGILE sticker, paired with your grin makes him nervous, "guess what I bought!"
His forehead curls, "somehow, I can tell that I really shouldn't."
You growl and run off to grab a knife.
Your already stressing lover nearly spits out his coffee with how you stab the box open, "geeeeeez, honey, please be—"
His words go dry when you pull out a large crystal, mounted on a plastic disk with a cord attached to it.
He realizes a few seconds later that it was a lamp for the bedside table.
"TADAA!" exclaims the love of his life, who he should have never doubted, "it's a salt lamp!"
He puts his mug down and takes the lamp from you, finding it slightly heavy in his hand. He hums, heart aching with how excitedly you wait for his reaction. He smiles back, his gaze softer than cashmere, "it'll go well on the bedside table."
"Yeah!" you grin and nod, "why don't we go try it out!"
A chuckle leaves him as you drag him to the bedroom. He follows obediently, half the ache in his heart morphing into guilt, as it was his promise to replace the flickering lamp.
Robby doesn't wait, he swiftly unplugs the old lamp and replaces it with a new one, making you jump for joy and clap your hands when it lights up.
He hums, "the light is yellow."
"Yeah," you reach for the switch, "it's supposed to be healthier."
His eyes narrow at the statement, but he lets his slide.
You adjust the intensity of the light, turning it on and off a few times, before turning to him with a smile, "so... you feel better?"
He raises his brows and looks suspiciously around the room.
You place your hand on the salt lamp, "this has healing properties."
Immediately, his eyes shut and his jaw slacks with a sigh. There it is.
You cannot withhold your smile as the man before you crosses his arms. You hum, squeezing his bicep as you bite your lip.
Robby ignores it, but does give you his signature stare.
You are unfazed, in fact, you flourish beneath it, "what? It's what it says on the website."
He blurts out your full name, hyphen Robinavitch included. It does not have the effect he wishes it would. Your belly merely tingles and you return his stern look with wide and very innocent eyes.
"It's supposed to help you recharge faster!" you pat the object, "the salt is supposed to absorb the fatigue in the air—"
"Absorb the fatigue?!"
"— and!" you raise a finger, "it's supposed to replenish your electrolytes!"
His face falls. He slaps a hand on his forehead, dragging it roughly down his face. Oh, fuck, is this what an aneurysm feels like?
You chew your lower lip as you watch him sigh. You bite your fingernails as his chest heaves and his nostrils flare. You decide to take his hand and press it to the lamp.
He immediately pulls it away, calling your name warningly.
"Let it replenish you!"
"Reple— honey," he clutches your cheeks, "I can forgive your overpriced skincare, your excessive supplements, your damn light therapy—'
He covers your mouth when you try to open it.
"But a healing lamp? Really?"
You pull his hand off you, "actually, it's a healing salt lamp."
He groans under his breath, something about not being able to believe his ears and how he wants Jesus to strengthen him.
You lick your lips, chuckling softly at how he crosses his arms again, "why don't you just give it a chanceee!" You wrap your arms around him and bat your lashes.
He glares back, undeterred by you and your stupidly pretty face.
"Even placebo has its place in medicine!"
You gasp when he suddenly grabs you by the hair, pulling your head back a bit, "so you know it's placebo?"
Your stomach rolls, "... placebo for you."
"Fuck," he rolls his eyes nearly to the back of his skull and releases you, "it's too early for this."
"It was 11:40 when I started doing the dishes."
He pulls away completely and walks off, "too damn early."
Pairings: Alpha!Robby x Omega!Reader, Alpha!Jack x Omega!Reader
When your shitty ex alphahole boyfriend tracks you down across the country, Jack and Robby take it upon themselves to take care of you. And him.
Warnings for this series: Robby and Jack may be a little darker than you're used to, it comes with the omegaverse territory in this one. Obviously, omegaverse dynamics. Normal Pitt canon stuff. Medical inaccuracies. discussions of abuse, assault, etc. No smut. At least there's none in the outline. I lied. There's totally smut. I'm not sure it's good smut but eh. I'm sure there's more but that's most of it.
synopsis: you house sit for robby while he’s gone on his sabbatical. but when he returns, everything in house has left a scent of “you” behind.
warnings: reader is a second year resident, reader has a slight attitude, robby and reader are friends kinda?, flirty bantering, probably inaccurate medical stuff, robby is soooo in love with reader and she’s clueless, some yearning.
a/n: officially all caught up on the pitt!! i miss them already. i know we still haven’t seen robby leave on his sabbatical yet and if he will be gone 3 months but shush!! i got a little carried away with this forgive me!!
it had been hell in the pitt today, especially with the cyber attack shutting the systems down so now everything had to be documented like the old times. on one of your rare moments of free time, you took the opportunity to do charting.
you were currently seated next to trinity, both of you catching up on your charting and grumbling about it— trinity more than you— and also talking about mindless shit to try distract you from this shit show of a shift.
“what do you think about dr robby taking a sabbatical?” trinity asked, lowering her voice so only you two could hear. “good for him. it’s very long overdue,” you said, you had grown closer to dr robby over the past ten months even striking up somewhat of a friendship with him.
“plus, it’s like he’s had firery stick shoved up his ass and it’s been wedged up there permanently.” you smirked, trinity throwing her head back in laughter at your choice of words. “i heard that.” robby scolded as he ran past the both you.
“sorry doc.” you giggled and quickly got back to doing this last bit of charting. “how do you only have a little bit left of charting? i’m gonna be stuck here for hours trying to get this done. it’s no help the fucking systems down and that AI app isn’t up either.” trinity whined.
“ew, don’t use that app. it’s not reliable in the slightest, remember earlier when it fucked up what prescription the patient was on and whitaker had to change it himself?” you said, arching a brow. “you do everything by the book, jesus.” trinity said rolling her eyes at you, you shrugged your shoulders in response.
“oh you kids!” dana chuckled, overhearing your conversation and remembering a time when absolutely everything was done manually. trinity had stood up and walked away to go file.
“hey!” you smiled as dennis passed by quickly, giving you small wave before walking up to trinity. their conversation had begun getting heated and you tried your hardest not to listen in on them.
they both started walking back to the desk and you snapped your head down pretending you were totally clueless, but the demeanour between the two had totally shifted which was odd.
“honestly, i thought it was your idea to get me to move out of your apartment!” dennis whisper shouted. you had caught onto the tail end of the conversation and now decided to involve yourself. you, dennis and trinity all lived in trinity’s small apartment, it was tiny but cosy.
trinity had asked if you wanted to move in relatively early on during your first shift as the two of you had struck up a friendship right away, however what you didn’t expect that by the end of your first shift together you would be taking whitaker home with you both.
“wait-wait where are you going? you want to move out?” you cut in, a million questions threatening to tumble out of your mouth at once.
“no, no i wanted him to give you some fatherly advice about going all farmers only! not giving you the keys to his fucking house.” trinity bit. a heavy silence hung in the air between you three. you found it quite funny that trinity had hatched a plan with dr robby of all people and robby actually went through with it.
“oh. my. god.” dennis laughed. “i know it was none of my business…” trinity said. “no it’s not that, you actually like living with me don’t you? dennis teased. “oh fuck.” you groaned, knowing that trinity would go on the defensive.
the pair squabbled back and forth and quite frankly your brain was about to burst if they went on any longer. “you are such a fuckleberry, have fun with robby’s plants.” trinity snapped and was about to walk away when you stopped her.
“listen,” you started. “i’ll house sit for him.” you shrugged, you had some sort of friendship with robby so it would make more sense. “you’ll what?” dennis said incredulously. “huh.” trinity smirked. on the many “girls nights” you and trinity had together laying up on the couch, you confessed your feelings for robby.
“oh so you’re fine with her moving out?” dennis said turning around to trinity, his tone more confrontational to which trinity just shrugged. “double fucking standards.” dennis grumbled.
“it’s not like i’ll be moving in or anything ew,” you said pulling a face. “i’ll clean his house, look after his plants and shit, add a touch of me in his apartment.”
“oh i bet you will.” trinity chuckled and walked away. “why was she just so easily accepting with you but not with me? you’re her bestfriend?” dennis asked in confusion. “don’t worry about it, if you catch robby tell him about the change of plans. thank you!” you smiled as you run at a steady pace to get to your patient from earlier.
you had forgotten all about the offer in the chaos that ensued over the past couple of hours. when you had caught up on all your patients and medicated them, you took this as an opportunity to go to the nursery and visit baby jane doe.
baby girl was one of your patients that you had and you were assigned with dr mohan. but when you walked in, robby was already there cradling the baby close to his chest and saying things to her that you couldn’t hear. the sight before you made you melt.
“dr robby.” you said announcing your presence. “how is she?” you asked walking around to the side of the crib. “no change from last time. she’s perfectly healthy.” he said smiling down at the baby as he placed her back down. you did your usual check ups on her and couldn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary.
“i heard about your offer from whitaker, why’d you offer?” robby enquired. “dr santos was having it out with whitaker over it, it was this whole thing. so i offered because we’re friends.” you smiled.
“we’re friends?” robby smirked in amusement. “dude.” you rolled your eyes. “i’m just fucking with you.” he chuckled.
“why didn’t you ask me to house sit in the first place? you know i would’ve said yes.” you asked. “the whole thing with whitaker and farm girl, i thought i was helping.” robby shrugged. “i don’t even involve myself in whatever the fuck whitaker has going on with amy. his business.” you said.
“fair enough.” robby said and nodded his head. a silence fell over the two of you as you both looked at baby jane doe. it was a comfortable silence, the two of you fell into those often.
“we should name her.” you spoke up breaking the silence, the baby grabbing your finger with her little hand. you couldn’t understand the mothers thinking and it made your heart break for this little girl. the world was already cruel enough as it is.
“we don’t have the right to do that, unfortunately.” robby smiled sadly as he took the baby’s other hand. “since when do you follow hospital rules and protocol?” you smirked. “you’re right.” he gave in.
“usually am.” you smiled. “so what’s her name, doc?” robby asked, now diverging his gaze at you. “would annie be totally inappropriate?” you joked. “yes it would.” he chuckled.
“penelope.” you decided. “penelope it is. cute name for a cuter baby.” robby cooed down at her. “i gotta get going, see me at the end of the shift and i’ll give you my keys and the security code.” robby said before he exited the room.
dr mohan entered the room followed by dr al-hashimi to check on the baby. “penelope’s doing good! talking formula well and her vitals are great.” you smiled down at penelope. “who’s penelope?” dr al-hashimi asked.
“baby jane doe.” you clarified. “it suits her.” dr mohan smiled.
the end of the shift had dragged in but you were finally finished and true to his word dr robby handed you everything you needed. “you’re leaving…. right now?” you asked as robby hopped on his motorcycle with a big rucksack slung over his shoulder.
“i need to get the fuck out of here.” robby said sounding almost desperate. “i respect that,” you nodded. “see you in three months robby, the pitt won’t be the same without you.”
you usually would text dr robby little messages like “how are you? 💖” to which he would follow up with his usual “Fine. You?”. robby couldn’t deny the small smile that crawled up onto his lips when he received the messages on your days off.
“you’re in safe hands.” he reassured. there was some unspoken words floating between you two that the both of you chose to ignore. there was no doubt that you would both miss eachother when he was gone.
“for the love of god, please be fucking safe.” you pleaded. “of course.” robby nodded. “you and this now helmet bullshit. “ you grumbled, you hated his insistence that he didn’t need a helmet.
“i’ll message you when i get there.” robby said in a way of reassuring you. it was his silent way of letting you know he’s okay to settle your nerves because he knows what you’re like.
you walked away without a word catching up with trinity and dennis.
_____________________
you decided to give it about a week before you went to robby’s apartment. on your day off you had nothing better to do so you flung on some comfy clothes and walked across the city towards his “bachelor pad”.
you unlocked the door and what you were greeted with inside pleasantly surprised you. this was not at all like a bachelor pad. you were expecting the house to be messy and smelly but it was totally clean. robby’s house was a perfect balance between maximalist and minimalist. he didn’t have too much clutter but his home also had a “soul” it wasn’t practically empty.
you snooped around his home, just to get your bearings and see what you were working with. he has two large bookshelves stacked with many titles. you skimmed the books he housed and you were impressed at how many incredible titles there was. “not bad, robinavich.” you said to yourself.
you went into his bedroom which was a sacred place for anyone, you couldn’t just leave this room out when cleaning! his room was very minimalist it was almost sad. not as much soul as there was in the living room. there was only the basic essentials that you need in a bedroom in robby’s. no stupid trinkets, plants or things that make a person seem human.
you walked to his bathroom. it was a generic looking bathroom, nothing amazing. the thing that caught your eye however, was a 3 in 1 shower gel and one measly crusty bar of soap. you pulled a face as you stared down at these sad items.
this place needed some of your touch in it.
you decided to visit once or twice every week to clean up, water the plants, collect the mail and whatever else.
after that first day of “inspecting” his house you went on a shopping trip. you bought shampoo, conditioner (for his beard of course!) body wash, a pack of three bars of soap, shaving foam and a new razor for his bathroom.
you swapped out his almost finished manly smelling cleaning products for new fruity scents and stored them underneath his kitchen sink. you had bought a couple of plants, pillows and blankets for his bedroom to give it some more character.
you watered all of his plants and brung them all back to life as they had looked just about ready to die before, and stored his mail in a neat little pile by the front door.
and top it all off, you sprayed your perfume in each room after you had finished cleaning. something you knew would annoy him.
it was currently month three of robby’s sabbatical and he was due home any day now you didn’t know when, he hadn’t shot you a message letting you know.
you had decided to go on a mini food shop anyways. you didn’t want robby living off of six month old tinned food that he had found at the back of his cupboards. and you knew he wouldn’t have much time when he got back to work to food shop and would hold off on it for as long as possible. you knew him too well.
in this moment, you were in his apartment cleaning with music on full blast. you had brought your speaker from home and connected your phone to it. “clumsy” by fergie was blaring through the speakers.
“clumsy cause i’m falling in loveeee.” you sang to yourself as you wiped down the coffee table, dancing a little in the process.
“hey.” a voice that had your whipping around so fast you were positive you just about gave yourself whiplash. “JESUS FUCK!” you screamed as you were sure your heart just fell to your ass. you were met with an amused robby.
“a text or something next time would’ve been appreciated. you can’t go about sneaking up on people like that!” you scolded as you held your heart, pausing the music that you were quite embarrassed he had walked in on you listening to.
“i texted you!” he defended. you looked at your phone and sure enough he did. “yeah, ten minutes ago!” you exclaimed. “i’m sorry.” he laughed as you folded your arms in a huff.
you caught robby looking you up and down. was he checking you out? your cheeks flushed underneath his stare. “is there something wrong?” you frowned as you looked down at your clothes.
“no! i’ve just never seen you like this before.” robby said. “you mean in normal clothes and not in scrubs.” you smiled and he nodded. “you look great.” robby complimented, something flashing in his eyes that you couldn’t quite decipher.
“thanks.” you smile all of a sudden feeling quite shy. robby walked off into his bedroom to place his stuff down before coming back into the living room where you were still rooted to the same spot.
“i like what you’ve done with the place.” robby smirked in amusement. realisation washed over you and you felt your face drop. “im so sorry. i didn’t mean to overstep.” you apologised, rushing out every word.
“stop.” robby said in a low voice grabbing your shoulders which shut you up immediately. “i like it.” he said. “it’s nice having someone who… cares enough.” robby confessed, avoiding your eyes as he said it.
“it’s no problem.” you smiled that smile which has robby melting and giving in. “a woman’s touch is always nice.” robby said, not meaning to make that sound as dirty as it was.
“you’re welcome.” you smirked as robby rubbed his hands over his face in embarrassment. “oh. i washed your hoodie by the way.” you said as you tossed him that familiar navy blue hoodie that is practically glued on him.
“thank you.” he said but he could not help but get a whiff of the hoodie. it smelled exactly like you. a scent which he loved and couldn’t get enough of.
“im gonna get going. see you at work robby, nice to have you back.” you smiled as you left his apartment taking all of your things with you.
robby had sniffed the hoodie like a pervert, just to savour every moment of your scent on one of things. he knew that was going to get an earful about this off of jack.
robby walked through the rest of his house and chuckled at all the little bits of you, you had sprinkled through his home. everything reminded him of you.
when he showered later on that night, he couldn’t get you out of his head and seeing your face at work tomorrow morning. even down to the shower products he was now using thanks to you, there was reminders of you left everywhere.
you were haunting him in the best way possible.
robby walked back into work the next day, feeling optimistic and with a small smile permanently planted on his lips. once he seen you he couldn’t miss the chance to steal you away and talk at any free moment you both got.
dana had smirked knowingly at him all day.
“bro, why do you smell like a woman?” jack asked suspiciously as he sniffed robby’s hoodie. “you actually smell…. good? for once.” jack joked.
“shut up.” robby grumbled but his eyes drifted over to where you were standing charting. jack followed robby’s eyes and nodded his head.
“of course.” jack teased. “don’t start.” robby warned.
“this is not the end of this conversation, michael!” jack chuckled as he ran towards an incoming trauma.
————-
readers playlist for when she’s cleaning robby’s house here !
Pairing: Bealor Targaryen x FemReader (not use of Y/N)
Part Two
Lyonel Maekar Original Imagine Masterlist
Warnings: Male gaze yearning (he wants that cookie bad) attempted assault, poor self image (reader is delulu) poor family dynamics
Imagine: You were the eldest daughter of a great house. Your mother had sadly passed many years ago, bringing your sister into the world, and from that day forward, you were no longer simply a daughter. You were lady of the house in everything but title.
Your father, too grief-stricken to wed again, turned to you instead. The duty of running the household and raising your sister had fell to you, just a girl yourself at the time. You learned quick, avoiding your loneliness by through work and sharpening your keen mind.
There was a time you thought your father would secure a match for you. You remembered that conversation, a pit in your stomach “I cannot spare you. Who would care for us if you were gone?”
It had hurt then, but like always you buried it down, hoping it would hurt less overtime. Eventually, you believed the words true. You were useful, dependable, practical. But not loved, not desired. You believed it was somehow your fault.
Now years had passed and you felt well past your marriageable age. A spinster. The word had once stung. Now it simply fit.
Your sister, bright and beautiful and just spoiled enough to be charming, had blossomed into the perfect bride.
Your father had arranged an exceptional match, not for you, for her. And so the household prepared to travel
—————————————————————————————————————
The Red Keep was not a welcoming sight. It loomed over King’s Landing, Targaryen banners snapping in the wind. It was loud, hot and restless, nothing like home.
Your sister loved it immediately. She gasped as the gates opened “It is magnificent!” already imagining the balls and feasts.
You felt uneasy, feeling the weight of eyes on you. Court vipers, the lot of them. The word ‘spinster’ already being whispered behind giggles.
You lingered half a step behind your sister and father. As you always had.
—————————————————
Prince Baelor received you in a solar overlooking Blackwater Bay. Preferring a smaller audience to meet his future bride.
He was not what you expected, you had heard stories of the dark haired Targaryen prince, Breakspear, The Hammer, Hand of the King. All of his titles suggested someone hard and fearsome.
He was tall, broad shoulders, white hairs peppering his dark hair and beard, he gave the full picture of a warrior. And yet when he smiled, it was sincere.
He greeted your father first as the old man bowed to him, the prince inclining his head in acknowledgment. His gaze turned to your sister, as she brazenly stepped forward dropping into a deep curtesy with a giggle, the picture of youth. He greeted her kindly, if not a little restrained. Then his gaze turned to you, as you gave a simple curtesy remaining a step behind your sister.
His expression changed almost imperceptibly, surprise, as though he had not expected you. Your father clearly omitting his elder daughter in his correspondence with the crown. ‘Not for the first time’ pyou think bitterly.
His gaze lingered on you a fraction too long before returning to your sister. You told yourself you imagined it.
Your sister gushes about the city, the markets, the heat and the promise of feasts
“King’s Landing overwhelms at first” Bealor says warmly.
“It is everything I hoped it would be!” she replied brightly “I should like to see the throne room tomorrow, if it pleases you” she added forgetting herself.
He nodded softly “It will be arranged” He turned then, to you. “And you, my lady? What would you wish to see?”
You blinked, surprised to be addressed “The library, your grace” you answered before you could soften it, your eyes dropping to the floor.
Your sister laughed lightly “She prefers books to all else!” It was not a cruel jest. But it struck all the same as you felt heat rise in your face.
Baelor did not laugh, his eyes remained on you “The Red Keep library is worth preferring” he said evenly “It contains original records of Aegon’s Landing and back to the kings of old”
Your gaze lifted despite yourself. Meeting his eyes for the first time, eyes which you noticed where beautifully mismatched “Truly?” You asked, your interest immediately peeked.
His mouth curved faintly “Truly”
It was a small exchange. Brief, something one could easy forget. But yet it made your heart beat faster all the same.
Your sister resumed speaking of tourneys and feasts. Baelor offered her his arm and escorted her toward the gardens, your father following as chaperone.
You remained behind, as you always did. There were rooms to arrange, servants to direct and trunks to unpack. Practicalities fell to you. They always had.
As you turned down the corridor toward your chambers, you could not shake the faint, unsettling thought that when he had looked at you, he had looked curious.
You dismissed it at once, with a shake of your head. Curiosity was for beautiful and breathtaking things. Not for spinsters.
——————————-
The Iron Throne was smaller than you expected.
In the stories you had read you expected a towering throne as high as the ceiling of the Great Sept, a monstrous, jagged thing of legend and shadow.
In reality, it was a big chair of melted swords.
Your sister was breathless, or at least pretending to be “It is magnificent” she whispered, eyes shining as she stared a the throne, no doubt was imagining herself upon it.
Prince Baelor stood beside her, hands clasped loosely behind his back. “It is a reminder” he said evenly “Of what was conquered”
You noticed he did not say “won” tilting your head in interest. Your sister of course did not.
She stepped closer, peering upward “One must feel powerful sitting there” she preened.
“One must feel responsible” Baelor corrected gently, a heaviness to his words.
She smiled as though he had made a jest. You did not smile, your eyes on his back, like he was a riddle you could not figure out.
Your sister studied the blades “Oh they are still quite sharp, one would think you would have them dulled. To be more comfortable of course” she says with a sigh.
“It is not meant to be comfortable” you say without thinking, your face flushing as you see him turning around.
Baelor turned eyes on you, that curious look in his eyes again “Exactly” he said simply, keeping his gaze on you. Something unreadable in is tone.
Your sister shrugged, already turned away, distracted by a tapestry along the wall.
You move to follow her, keeping your head down feeling foolish for interjecting. You did not notice Baelor’s gaze lingered on you longer than it should have.
⸻————————————
The Red Keep library smelled of parchment and dust and old ink. It was glorious.
Your sister lasted perhaps four minutes before she was bored. She ran a finger along a shelf and recoiled at the dust. “I cannot imagine spending an afternoon here”
“I can” you murmured, walking through the shelves eyes wide.
Baelor heard you but did not comment. He moved between shelves with familiarity, pulling down a large volume bound in cracked leather. “The original record of Aegon’s Landing” he said, offering it to you.
You took it carefully, reverent, your fingers brushing his “Thank you your grace” you say a bit breathless as your hands skimmed over the cover.
Your sister sighed softly “I believe I shall explore the gardens instead” clearly expecting the prince to follow her and she scurried off with her maids.
However, he held back, just for a moment “You read histories often?” he asked, that look in his eyes again.
“When I can” you say softly.
“And when you cannot?” He asked amusement tinged in his voice
“I remember them” you say simply. You have always had a great memory for even small details.
That earned the smallest lift of his brow, challenging or impressed, you could not tell. However, your mind chimed in that he would not be impressed by a spinster like you.
You stepped closer to the window for better light, opening the text carefully, you did not notice that he had come to stand beside you, till you could almost feel the warmth of him.
‘Targaryens must run hot’ you think, maybe the blood of the dragon is not a far off description.
Focussing your eyes on the page you greedily read, before a line caught your attention “This contradicts the Sept’s later account” you mumble to yourself, not expecting to him to be answer or even interested in what you had to say.
Much to your surprise, he leaned in to see. Too close, your shoulders brushed, causing you to take in a silent breath.
He did not move away immediately, instead his eyes fixed on the line your finger hovered over “Few records survive unaltered, there is a later account that confirms it” he said softly, reaching over to turn to the mentioned page.
Your fingers met, you withdrew quickly, ignoring the tinging from the heat of his skin.
His hand stilled a fraction longer before turning the page.
You told yourself it meant nothing, and innocent accident, nothing more.
Especially since after he turned the page to the right section he quickly bid you a goodday and left. Fleeing like you had grey scale.
⸻———————-
The hour was late, you should have been in your chambers.
Instead, you found yourself back in the library after supper, sleeves rolled slightly, questioning the Maester on trade records from Dorne.
The old man blinked at you in mild astonishment, this strange spinster haunting him like spector in the night “You are certain those tariffs shifted after the rebellion?” He questioned
“I am certain” you insisted animatedly, feeling more like yourself then since you arrived “If you compare the port ledgers you will see things have been omitted like they wanted it hidden from the histories” you flipping through the pages.
“You are comparing port ledgers?” came a familiar voice from behind you, causing you to jump. Prince Baelor stood at the entrance
The Maester straightened hurriedly “Your Grace” you dropped into a quick curtsy, book still clutched in your arms.
His gaze flicked between you and the Maester “You may leave us” Baelor said calmly.
At first you think he means you, and make quick work to move, till you see out the corner of your eye, the Master bow and disappear into the shelves.
You look back Bealor, still in his tunic from supper though the collar has been opened. You suddenly felt very aware of the hour “Apologise you grace, I did not expect”
He cuts you off with a raise of his hand “No apologies needed, you are my guest” He moved deeper into the room, gaze settling on the open scroll before you and the book your hands “It gladdens me to see you returned”
You try not to flush “It seemed a waste not to” you admit.
He huffed softly in what you sensed was approval. Still unable to meet his gaze. “You were correct earlier” he said “The Sept’s account is sanitized”
You looked up sharply, unable to help the triumphant grin from spreading across your features “You checked?” You asked somewhat astonished.
“I did” he said simply, smiling softly through his eyes had seemed to drop to your mouth. You suddenly became very self aware of your smile, not bright or beautiful like your sisters.
You swallowed dropping your gaze stepping back “The hour is late. I must return to my chambers. Good night your grace” you say with a curtsy unable to meet his gaze yet again as you all but run from the library.
Not feeling his gaze follow you, shifting from curiosity to something else entirely.
——————————————
Time at court passed surprisingly slowly. Well for a spinster it did. Whilst your sister was included in teas, garden walks and afternoons with the ladies of the court, you were a social outsider.
You did not mind too much, used to being alone. You found things to occupy your days, mainly the library. The measter grown used to your presence and questions.
Prince Baelor was another thing. He had a knack for seeking you out whist you where roaming the halls and in the library, not for anything in particular it seemed, just to talk. He would ask your options on books and your day, dropping in little fragments of his own work as hand of the king which fascinated you. You also found he seemed to include you more on your chaperoning trips.
Today was such a day.
The Dragonpit was not what your sister expected, despite all but begging the prince to go, she had done nothing but complain, from the moment you left the keep “It smells” she declared, pressing a scented cloth to her nose.
“It is ruin” Baelor replied mildly “Ruins rarely perfume itself”
You stood at the edge of the collapsed dome, staring down into the vast hollow where dragons had once been chained. Beautiful terrifying creatures, chained and unable to fight back “They died here” you mutter to yourself.
“Yes” Prince Bealor said from too close behind you.
“Not from weakness” you added quietly “From fear”
That caught his attention, you felt it. But he did not comment, instead your sister took his attention kicking up some old sand, bored by dust and history.
You wandered in a bit further, stepping forward slightly to peer over the broken edge. Stone shifted beneath your slipper, your hands shot out feeling yourself begin to slip.
You feel a firm hand close around your elbow, pulling you back.
You inhaled sharply as you regain steady footing, his warm hand still on you “Thank you, your grace’ you say flushed and feeling foolish
His grip lingered “Careful” he said evenly, eyes sweeping over you, before pulling away. You missed the way his hand flexed at his side as if burned.
You nodded, pretending your pulse had not jumped.
⸻——————————-
You had not meant to wander. You told yourself that twice as you turned down the corridor that led toward the council chamber.
You peeked around corner, the door to the chamber stood closed, guarded by two Kingsguard.
Voices filtered through the heavy wood, too low to make out. You paused a few paces away.
It was not eavesdropping, you told yourself. It was simple observation.
You had spent your life observing.
The meeting ended sooner than you expected, the door opened abruptly and lords filed out, still speaking in tight, irritated murmuring.
You stepped back at once, gathering your skirts, intending to disappear, however too late. One councillor’s brows lifted sharply “My lady?” His voice carrying through the hall.
You froze. Another lord laughed “Were we entertaining guests?” His eyes roaming over you.
Heat rushed to your face “I was merely passing” you began meekly.
However, the implication hung heavy anyway. Eavesdropping. A unknown lady, attempting to overhear the governance of the realm, the kings business. Not only was it improper, it was suspicious, bordering on treasonous.
The kingsguard begin to approach you, when Baelor’s voice cut through the corridor “She was not disturbing anything” he said evenly, his gaze sweeping over you.
“She stood at the door listening” one councillor replied, disapproving.
Baelor’s expression did not change “She is my guest” he replied simply. However as heir and hand, that was all he needed.
One by one, the councillors inclined their heads and moved, passing you with lingering looks mixing between disapproval and suspicion.
You wished the floor would open and swallow you whole.
Your gaze lifted to see Baelor in the doorway still watching you “I apologise” you say quietly.
“For what?” he asks, eyebrow quirking
“For appearing……improper” you say meekly, eyes dropping again.
He studied you, a small smile on his features “You were curious” he states.
“Yes” you nod softly
“And you believe curiosity a crime?” He asks in that irrefutable soft tone of his.
“When it is unwelcome or causes issue” you say, thinking of betrothals and whispers and ruined prospects.
He regarded you for a moment. Then he stepped aside “Come” he said.
You blinked “Your Grace?”
“If you are to stand at the door, you may as well see what is behind it” he spoke softly, a hint of teasing in his tone.
You hesitated, but crossed the hall to him and stepped inside.
The chamber was smaller than you thought. Maps lined the walls. Wax seals marked positions along carved wooden tables.
“This is where decisions are made” Baelor said quietly, a weight behind his words, eyes still on your form.
You walked slowly around the table “Not on the throne” you say already knowing the answer.
“No” he says from behind you, closer than before.
You stopped beside a map of the Narrow Sea, eyes sweeping over it “Storms will disrupt these routes by autumn” you said softly.
He did not ask how you knew. He only nodded once.
“And what would you do?” he asked genuinely curious.
“Diversify shipments, stagger arrivals, store more before summer ends” you say your fingers tracing the ports on the map
“You speak as though you have governed a port” you could hear the smile in his voice
“I have governed a household” you replied quietly “Supplies run thin there as well”
He stepped closer, you are sure you felt the brush of his chest upon your back “And when supplies did run thin?” He asked voice lower
“People grow resentful long before they grow hungry” you say softly.
That earned a small pause. He shifted slightly and you believed he had stepped back, however when you turned, you nearly collided into him.
You caught his arm, as he caught yours “You think ahead” he said as you pulled back quickly.
“I was raised to” you answered, willing your heart from pounding.
His hand lingered a fraction longer than necessary.
“You should not stand outside council doors” he said at last, a small chide in his tone.
Heat rushed your face “I did not mean to” you begin
“I know” he cut in gently “Curiosity is not a flaw, it is an asset”
You looked up at him then. You were not accustomed to being described that way. An asset. You where silent for a moment, before saying softly “Thank you, for allowing me inside”
He simply nodded, but you noticed that odd look back in his eyes.
When you left the chamber moments later, your heart was pounding. You told yourself it meant nothing.
——————————————-
The heat in King’s Landing was relentless. Your sister declared that northern dresses were suffocating and insisted that the ladies of your household adopt “Something more appropriate to the climate” you felt your stomach drop at that “And to the Prince’s Dornish heritage” she added brightly.
The seamstresses were delighted, you were less so.
The gown laid out for you was lighter than you preferred. The sleeves exposing your arms and the neckline far lower than anything you have worn before. The fabric soft and flowing.
You told yourself you were being foolish, you had simply grown accustomed to hiding.
The gardens shimmered in late afternoon light when you joined them. Your sister looked radiant in pale gold, fabric draped elegantly across her shoulders, laughing already as Baelor approached.
He greeted her warmly. Then almost by habit his gaze shifted to you.
He stilled, his eyes traced you once. Taking in the bare curve of your collarbone, the lighter fabric at your waist, the way the sun caught against your skin.
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Then he inclined his head politely “My lady”
You dipped into an awkward curtsy, suddenly very aware of the breeze moving your light skirts.
You told yourself it was disapproval. That must look foolish. Unsuited for such gowns.
You were not the kind of woman princes noticed that way.
——————————————
It was late again, the sun long set and you were back in the library.
The Maester had been digging through the shelves when Baelor joined you at the great oak table, scrolls scattered between you.
His fingers tapped absently against the wood as you spoke animatedly about Rhaenys and her role in the conquest, as the Measter’s often downplay her role “So without Rhaenys—”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The tapping of his fingers causing you to lose your train of thought. It was maddening. Without thinking, you reached across the table and placed your hand over his.
“They wouldn’t have even claimed the Stormland’s, as Argilac had broken through Oryl’s centre. It was Rheanys and Maraxes that felled the personal guards, leaving Argilac vulnerable” you finish smiling not noticing the warm hand beneath yours had stilled completely, his eyes fixed on you.
You scrunch your eyebrows at his silence then realise your mistake. Quickly you pull your hand away “My apologies” you say unable to look directly at him, feeling foolish
You had not notice his gaze had darkened “You need not apologize” he said rougher than usual.
The Maester chose that moment to re-emerge from the shelves, mercifully oblivious, saving you from your embrassment.
————————-
You had mentioned Balerion only once, in passing, when truth he should have been talking with your sister.
You had not expected him to remember.
“Come” Baelor said one afternoon, appearing beside you in the corridor.
You look at him confused, but follow without question as he takes your arm.
The passageways beneath the Red Keep were cool and dim. Torches burned low against ancient stone, the air colder he deeper you go.
When the chamber opened before you, you stopped. Balerion’s skull dominated the space, illuminated by candles. A vast white skull with teeth longer than spears.
You stepped forward without thinking “He was larger in the stories” you murmured eyes fixed on the magnificent beast before you.
“He was larger in life” Baelor replied. “Time makes everything seem smaller”
You circled slowly, reverent, your hand reaching out, fingertips brushing the cool bone “You remembered that I wished to see this” you said quietly
“I remember most things you say” he says simply.
“A great pity for you” you teased lightly, continuing around the skull, unaware of his gaze following you.
Silence settled between you.
You turned toward him “Thank you” you say softly.
“For what?” He asks voice deeper than normal.
“For showing me this. I will not have many more chances to see such things” you smile at him before turning back to the skull.
His expression shifted “Why would you not?”
“My sister will be wed” you said lightly, as though it were obvious. “And I shall return home. I imagine the Red Keep will not miss me haunting its corridors” You smiled faintly to soften it.
You did not see the way he stilled “I had not considered that” he said slowly.
You laughed, embarrassed. “It was never my visit, you did not even know I existed”
It was your sister’s courtship. Your sister’s future. Your sister’s place.
“You speak as though you are already gone” he said voice tight with an emotion you could not name.
“I was never meant to stay” you say simply. You had told yourself the same since the day you arrived, this was not your future.
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. The torchlight caught in his eyes, darkening them “It is time for us to leave” he said sharply. He turned without waiting, walking away. You did not see the way his hands had curled into fists.
You blinked, unsure what you did to offend him. Casting one last look back at the skull, you followed him out of the chamber.
——————————-
The carriage ride to the Great Sept had been meant to be brief.
Your sister was in high spirits, chattering about embroidered veils and how beautiful the ceremony would look beneath the marble dome. The visit to the Great Sept had been arranged to discuss wedding details.
Baelor rode horseback rather than in the carriage. You told yourself he would not care that you were leaving soon. You must have offended him beneath the Red Keep somehow, perhaps your touching of Balerion.
Baelor did not look at you once when the carriage stopped before the Sept. He dismounted smoothly, offering your sister his hand first. You stepped down without assistance.
You did not notice his hand flex at his side as though restraining reaching out to you.
The meeting within the Sept was long, endless discussion of procession order, seating, even candle placement . Your mind drifted, but you kept your gaze from drifting toward him.
When it finally concluded, your sister was flushed with excitement “The market is just beyond the square” she breathed “Only a moment”
“We do not have the escort for wandering” you warned quietly. Refusing to ask Baelor who had returned to his horse.
“It is daylight” she answered naively, as though daylight itself were armor. Before you could stop her, she slipped toward the side street, laughing and beckoning you to follow.
You hesitated, your eyes quickly scanning for Baelor, but your sister was already disappearing into the crowd.
You went after her. Of course you did, it was your duty.
⸻
The market swallowed sound and sense alike. Color and fabric and shouting vendors. Bodies pressing too close.
Your sister moved too fast, laughing, pointing, delighted by everything.
You tried to stay close, but when a group of ship workers pushed between you, you were jostled hard against a stone wall.
You looked for your sister and could no longer see her colourful dress. You called her name but had no answer when suddenly, a voice slurred too near your ear “Oh what a pretty one”
A hand caught your wrist, strong and forceful. You twisted immediately. “Release me!” you demanded as he tightened his grip enough to leave a bruise.
Another man stepped closer, wine on his breath, “Lost are you?” He grinned, teeth missing.
“I am not alone” you say evenly despite the panic rising within you.
They laughed pushing you back against the wall as you cried out. One man leaned closer “Pretty thing to be wandering about” his hand stroking your face, then dragged down the front of your bodice as you writhed to break free.
“Let me go!” you demanded furious and terrified at once, letting out a cry as larger man ripped open the front of your dress. You closed your eyes unable to watch what came next.
The man’s grip tightened. And then it was gone. The man stumbled backward with a strangled cry.
Baelor stood between you and them. He must have followed, or sensed it, you did not know, you could only let out a relieved sob as you covered yourself, holding your dress together.
“You will not touch her” he said dangerously quiet, twisting the mans wrist sharply enough that the bone threaten to break.
The second man lunged for the dagger at his belt. He never drew it.
Baelor moved first, sword drawn. A single, brutal strike to the man’s throat.
The dagger clattered uselessly to the stones as the man staggered back, blood pouring as he collapsed.
The first man dropped to his knees, wheezing. Bealor cuts off his hand with one clean swipe, the man screams dropping down onto the floor.
“You laid hands upon a lady under my protection” Baelor said, voice quiet and carrying “You will count yourself fortunate to leave breathing”
You had not realized you were shaking until his hands came to your arms, still holding your dress. His gaze drops down, something in him shifting as he pulls off his cloak wrapping it around you.
“Are you hurt?” he asks softly, but his jaw was tight enough to splinter.
“No,” you managed voice shaking slightly “my sister” you say in sudden panic
“My kingsguard have her, she is safe” he assures “Come” he prompts softly, arm coming around your shoulders, directing you to the carriage.
He guides you inside, hands never leaving you. You half expect him to remount his horse, but he steps in after you, the small space feeling smaller as the door closes
You hold his cloak tighter around you, the dark material smells like him, you take a deep breathe without meaning to, his scent calming you.
You are very aware of the man opposite you, knees touching, eyes roaming over you checking for injury like you might bleed out infront of him.
“Are you hurt?” He repeated, his voice still carrying that rough edge.
“No” you say softly, unable to hide your wince as you pull his cloak tighter.
He notices, of course he notices. He holds his hand out toward you in silent instruction. You take your hand out from the cloak, careful not to expose the torn dress beneath.
He takes your wrist gently, examining where the man had gripped you, bruises already forming. His thumb brushed the inside of your pulse point as you take in a shaky breath.
“They touched you” he said, quieter now voice carefully controlled.
“It was my fault” you insisted “I should not have followed—” you start to explain
“You followed because your sister is careless child” he says sharply, his hand not letting you go. The sharpness of his words surprising you. “You will not wander without escort again” he said in a tone you did not recognise, akin to fear.
You looked up at him “I was trying to protect her. I did not think”
“That is precisely the problem” he cuts you off.
Silence fell heavy between you.
His gaze lingers on your wrist, fingers still stoking over the bruised skin. Then slowly rose to your face “You are not to place yourself in danger” his voice stern.
Your breath caught “I did not mean to” you say looking down “but she is my sister, my responsibility, if something happens to her it will be my fault” you take in a breath “I am of no consequence”
The words fall softly between you, you think little of them, as though they have lived in you for years.
His hand stops moving. The carriage continues to rattle over stone, but inside it becomes very, very quiet. Slowly, deliberately, he lifts his eyes to yours.
“What did you say?” His voice tighter than before.
You swallow, suddenly uncertain. “I meant, my sister is the one who matters. This is her future. Her marriage. If she were harmed” you trail off
“And you?” he asks eyes furious.
You hesitate “I would manage”
His jaw tightens “You would manage” he repeats, as though testing the phrase and finding it unacceptable “You place yourself between danger and your sister” he says quietly “Without hesitation”
“That is my duty” you say having no other answer
“And who stands between danger and you?”
The question lands harder than any rebuke, you look down unable to keep his gaze. He releases your wrist only to move closer, not enough to trap you, but enough that your knees press firmly together.
“You are not inconsequential” he says as through it is a fact. “You have been responsible your entire life” he continues. “That does not require you to be expendable”
The word hits you harder than the attack did. Expendable.
You draw in a careful breath, unsure what you are about to confess when the carriage slows.
Voices outside swell faintly, guards, attendants. The world returning.
———————————————
Your father sent for you before supper. You knew before you entered that something had shifted. Servants would not meet your eye, ladies no longer whispering behind their hands, they now fell silent as you passed.
You stood before his desk, hands folded taking in a shaky breath “You called for me, Father”
He did not ask if you were well “The court has been speaking” he began his voice stern and measured
You lowered your gaze “I see” you say softly.
“The incident in the market has…..complicated matters” his voice unchanged.
You swallowed “The prince and I did nothing improper” you said quietly. A part of you wanted to take whatever shame there was, if it spared him.
“I believe you” he replied “That is not the point”
Of course it wasn’t. You braced yourself thinking of the options. Perhaps you were merely to be sent home, or worse he was shipping you off to the silent sisters.
He continued evenly “Your sister’s position has become precarious. There are whispers. Speculation regarding the Prince’s attentions and your involvement”
Heat crept up your throat “I never sought”
“This is not about what you sought” he cut sharply, banging his hand on the table.
Silence pressed in for a moment as he regained his composure “The Prince has offered a solution”
You prepared yourself to be dismissed. To be sent away before more damage could be done.
“You will be betrothed to Prince Baelor ”The words landed so softly you were almost sure you misheard him.
You simply stood there numb. Feeling the shape of your life rearrange itself.
“For the sake of your sister” he said firmly “And to preserve honor” added as an afterthought.
Of course, you summised. This was never about you.
Now you had trapped a prince, one you where sure did not want you.
Pairing: Baelor Targaryen x FemReader (no use of y/n)
Lyonel Maekar Spinster Series Masterlist
Warnings: Male gaze yearning (he wants that cookie bad) poor self image (reader is delulu) poor family dynamics. Explicit Smut - Minors DNI
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who commented and left their love for this series, it is been a pleasure to write. Don’t forget to check out all 3 works, linked above.
You had avoided Baelor for days following your betrothal.
You told yourself you owed him that small mercy. You had already caused enough disruption.
The betrothal would be short one. The wedding already planned, the wedding that was meant to be your sister’s. Your father saw no reason in changing the arrangements simply because a different daughter would now walk down the aisle. You were not worth the inconvenience to him.
Once or twice you considered asking for a small change. Something simple like the flowers, you had never been fond of Lily’s. But each time you stopped yourself, believing you had caused enough trouble.
——————————————————————
You stood in your chambers, seamstresses arrived with trunks of silk and lace, their fingers swift, altering your sister’s gown to fit you. Even the dress would not be yours.
However you could not fault her taste. Ivory silk, with a nipped waist and a soft flowing train that shimmered when it caught the light. Your fingers traced the small golden dragon scales embroidered delicately along the bodice, rising toward the shoulders where Baelor would place his house cape. Claiming you as his.
The image lodged uncomfortably in your chest, a man who did not want you, forced to take you.
“It is exquisite my lady” one of the seamstresses breathed.
You met your own reflection in the tall mirror. The gown was beautiful. You were not. You felt like an imposter, wrapped in silk too fine for her.
You smoothed the fabric at your waist, unable to look at yourself much longer.
“Will I do?” you asked quietly
The seamstress blinked at you, startled by the question “You will do perfectly, my lady”
Maybe that would be enough.
——————————————-
Court did not make it easier, whispers followed you openly now.
“How fortunate for such a lady to secure such a match” one woman laughed behind her fan.
“I heard she brewed a potion to ensnare him” another replied cruelly “Why else would he choose her?”
You kept your chin lifted. You had learned long ago how to endure.
Court did not fracture around your sister, it embraced her. She was the wronged beauty. The gracious one, the younger daughter who bore disappointment with poise.
“How dreadful, stealing her sister’s propects right from under her nose” one woman tutted, looking right at you.
Your sister did not defend you, but she could not meet your gaze either. She simply accepted their sympathy, seeming brighter under the attention.
You left before anyone could see your face faulter.
—————————
There was only one place in the Red Keep that felt untouched by gossip. Balerion’s skull loomed as it always had, lit under the touch light.
You sat upon the stone ledge, in the dragon’s shadow and finally allowed your shoulders to fall, letting the tears slip from your eyes with a silent sob.
“I did not mean to ruin you” you whispered to the empty chamber.
The silence answered nothing.
You did not know how long you had been beneath the Red Keep. Sat with your head in your hands, your tears had dried without you noticing as you sat enjoying the silence.
After a while, you rose. It felt foolish to sit weeping beneath a dead dragon, it would not change anything.
You moved deeper into the cavernous hall, past Balerion’s vast skull into the smaller alcoves beyond where the skulls of each Targaryen dragon’s were kept. Each dragon diminished in size, less monstrous than the last.
You paused before one no larger than a cat. Baelor’s words echoing in you head ‘Time makes everything smaller’
You tilted your head slightly studying the tiny white skull. Perhaps that was true of fear and shame, perhaps one day all of this would not seem to large.
You almost laughed at yourself, you were comparing your circumstances to dragons now. “No wonder some Targaryens go mad” you mutter “its this damned place”
You moved further still, wandering slowly along the chamber wall, back towards Balerion, hands clasped behind your back. The world above felt distant, the Red Keep silent for once. It was peaceful.
You did not hear the echo of footsteps, too lost in thought. It was the sharp breath that drew your attention.
You turned and froze. Prince Baelor stood in the archway. Torchlight behind him cast his figure in shadow, but his face was visible. His eyes swept over you, fast, searching, almost frantic, as though confirming you were real.
You blinked, startled “Your Grace?” Your brows knit at the expression on his face.
His jaw was tight, his breathing heavy. For a moment he said nothing at all, as if fearing you might vanish if he disturbed the silence.
Then he crossed the chamber in swift strides stopping just short of you “You are here” he said, fingers flexing at this sides. His tone frayed with something you did not recognise.
You frowned slightly “Of course” you replied softly “Where else would I be?”
His gaze moved over you again, as though checking for injury. As though expecting blood.
You became suddenly aware that you had not told anyone where you were going “I did not mean to disturb anyone” you added gently “I only wished for quiet” your eyes dropping from his.
He exhaled slowly. It sounded suspiciously like relief.
“You have been searched for” he said at last, the words were controlled.
You blinked at him “Searched for?”
His jaw tightened “You have been absent for some time.”
You glanced around the cavern, almost bemused “Have I?”
He did not smile “The seamstress came to your chambers. You were not there. Nor in the gardens. Nor in the library.”
You felt a faint flicker of embarrassment “I did not realize I was required” you said softly “The gown is already chosen”
His eyes sharpened “This is not about the gown ”
You shifted slightly beneath his gaze. “I only wished for a moment of quiet. I did not mean to cause difficulty”
“Difficulty” he repeated, the word low.
You misunderstood the tone entirely “I know I am already disruptive” you continued, lowering your eyes “The last thing I intended was to trouble the household further”
For a heartbeat he did not speak. Then he stepped closer, enough that you felt the warmth of him in the cold chamber.
“You were not in your chambers” he said again, quieter now. “And no one knew where you had gone” the heat behind his words completely lost on you.
You looked up, confused by the intensity “I am hardly a child your grace”
He dragged a hand briefly across his jaw, regaining control “The city is not safe” he said evenly “Nor is this keep, as secure as it pretends to be”
The reminder of the market hung between you, of men with rough hands and cruel intentions.
You swallowed “I did not mean to cause alarm” you said at last, softer now “I thought no one would notice”
That was the line, that struck him hardest. His eyes darkened “I noticed” he said voice low.
The words settled heavily between you. For a fraction of a second, something in his expression was unguarded, raw.
You felt it. And promptly misread it.
“You are very diligent Your Grace” you said in faux lightness “ It would be inconvenient to misplace the bride this close to the wedding”
He took one slow step closer, your chest brushing his, his head craning down to you “Is that what you believe this is?” he asked
You tilted your head, puzzled “Is it not?” You gestured vaguely around the cavern “The court has already adjusted to the change. It would be terribly embarrassing to have to adjust again” you say completely misreading his words, not seeing the emotion in his ones.
His silence was not agreement.
You pressed on, unaware “I assure you, I have no intention of vanishing. I would not compound the trouble I have already caused”
There it was again. Trouble, inconvenience, disruptive. All the words that you used to describe yourself of late.
His gaze dropped briefly, then rose back to yours “You believe you have caused trouble”
You smiled faintly, almost apologetically “Have I not?” You say believing that you had doomed him to this, not noticing his eyes flicker over your face.
You glanced up at Balerion’s skull once more. “Dragons were simpler” you murmured “They burned what troubled them”
That earned the faintest exhale from him “And what troubles you?” he asked.
For a moment, your heart urged you to confess everything. The shame, the whispers, the certainty that you had stolen something meant for another.
But your mind intervened ‘Do not burden him further. You have done enough’
Brain won. “Oh, nothing so dramatic” you say in forced lightness.
And you walked toward the exit. Leaving him beneath the skull.
————————————
The feast before your wedding day was smaller than you expected. It settled the butterflies in your stomach.
You did not avoid Baelor that night. There was nowhere to hide, seated to his right as the top table, your arm brushing his.
The hall was loud with music and wine, but he did not drink heavily. His goblet remained mostly untouched, but you felt the weight of his eyes flick to you often.
“You have been quiet” he murmured beside you, close to your ear.
You smiled faintly “I was told brides are meant to appear composed”
“And are you?” He asked, eyes catching yours.
You considered the question honestly “I am trying to be” you say with a small smile, not noticing his eyes flick down.
“You need not try so hard” he said, in that soft ever reassuring voice of his.
You huffed softly “You have not seen me attempting embroidery, now that is trying too hard”
That earned the smallest curve of his mouth. You tried to ignore the heat raising to your face, dismissing it as the wine.
——————————————————-
Later, when the hall thinned and music softened, you stepped away from the table for air.
The balcony overlooked Blackwater Bay, the night breeze cooled your heated cheeks, the petals from the cherry blossoms above catching in the wind.
You smiled watching the white petals scatter as if fleeing to sea.
“You leave your own feast?” A voice asked behind you, you did not need to turn. He joined you at the balcony, his sleeve brushing yours.
“It is not mine” you replied before thinking.
His brow lowered slightly “It is”
You shook your head “It was arranged for another”
His jaw tightened, but he let the remark pass.
You rested your hands on the stone railing, close to his, pinkies almost touching “Do you ever tire of it?” you asked with a sigh.
“Of what?” He asked moving a fraction closer, like he was drawn.
“Court, politics, being observed” you say eyes meeting his.
A faint breath left him, sounding faintly amused “Constantly”
You glanced at him, surprised.
“Eldest sons are rarely afforded obscurity” he said honestly.
Something softened in you “Nor eldest daughters” you replied, his eyes focused on your face.
You continued, almost shyly “One is expected to be responsible, yield, endure and smooth what others disrupt.”
His expression shifted, something you could not name flashing though his eyes “Yes” he said quietly, the word carrying weight.
You looked out over the dark water “I used to think that meant something was wrong with me. That I was less suited to brighter things.”
He turned fully toward you now “And now?”
You gave a small, self deprecating smile “Now I think it simply means we are useful”
The wind blew slightly, a petal falling into your hair. You did not see the way his gaze lingered there.
“Useful” he repeated
You nodded “I think we will suit each other in that way” you said lightly “You require someone steady. I can be steady”
You thought you were offering reliability, support, someone to help carry the burden of the crown. He thought you were offering devotion.
His hand moved without conscious thought, catching the petal in your hair.
But instead of instead of retreating like normal, you smiled “You see?” you said softly “Already we are quite good at this”
“At what?” he asked, voice lower now.
“Being partners” you say softly.
The word landed between you. He studied your face carefully, for what, you were unsure “You believe that?” he asked his voice seeming rawer.
“Yes” you said, meeting his gaze steadily “I think we shall be great friends”
Friends. The word struck him like a blow, a knife slicing between his ribs. He stilled for a moment willing the emotion not to show on his face.
He nodded once “If that is what you wish”
You laughed softly “It is more than I expected” your mind whispering that a spinster should expect nothing.
That more than anything, undid him. He looked at you for a long moment, thoughts swirling in mind.
You expect nothing, but he intended to give you everything.
But he did not say it. Not yet.
———————————-
The bells began before dawn, ringing out from the great sept.
You however had not slept. You had sat through most of the night watching the sky lighten beyond your window, trying to quiet the steady hum in your chest.
Your hand maids gave a tentative knock “Enter” you order.
They piled in busying themselves immediately, one hanging your gown, another with hot waters preparing a bath. Another stripping your the sheets. You will be in another bed tonight, you tried not to think too much on that.
“Shall we, my lady?” one of the women asked gently.
You nodded. Prepared for your future.
They bathed and dressed you in careful silence. The gown slitting over your skin like butter, as the laced the bodice tight. They pinched your cheeks and painted your lips in a light rouge. They pinned your hair back, leaving a few strands to frame your face and set a delicate circlet against your crown.
When at last you stood before the mirror, you almost did not recognize yourself.
The gown was exquisite. The woman wearing it looked composed.
“Will I do?” you asked quietly repeating your earlier words.
“You will be radiant, my lady” one of them breathed.
You smiled a small sad smile, your mind telling you they were lying out of kindness.
Pulling yourself together, taking a breath as your fingers traced over the dragon embroidery. You could do this.
⸻—————————————
The Sept of Baelor gleamed in white marble and candlelight.
You stepped inside on your father’s arm, your house cloak pinned to your back. The court had gathered in full force, but you looked past those vipers and their whispers your attention caught by something else.
Cherry blossoms.
Your steps faltered almost imperceptibly, The marble columns had been wound with pale branches heavy with small white blooms. Petals scattered along the aisle instead of stark white lilies.
Lilies had been chosen weeks ago, you remembered your sister speaking of them with great enthusiasm. You remembered nodding along when your father had said you will keep the same plans.
Cherry blossoms had never been mentioned once.
You lifted your eyes, down the aisle to find Baelor was watching you.
You told yourself it was coincidence, perhaps lilies were unavailable. Perhaps the Sept had made the choice.
Perhaps……The music began interrupting your thoughts.
You felt every eye as you stepped forward, you father guiding you down, his head high. Your sister seated among the noble ladies, you did not look at her for long.
Your eyes again finding his, Baelor. Looking as devastatingly handsome as always in a formal red and black doublet, all the trappings of a Targaryen prince.
He did not look at the crowd, he looked only at you.
And for once you did not look away, your steps did not falter, your face did not heat.
You met him at the top of the steps, your father giving you hand to him. The touch of his Baelor’s warm skin grounding you, your eyes not giving his as the High Septon’s voice echoed through the great dome. Words of duty, lineage, ofthe joining of houses and blood.
You repeated your vows clearly “I am his and he is mine, from this day till my last” Without tremor, without hesitation.
When it was his turn, his voice carried easily across the Sept, strong and certain as always.
“I am hers and she is mine, from this day till my last” The way he said did not sound like obligation. It sounded like claim.
You told yourself that was imagination.
The final words were spoken, Baelor stepped forward and removed his cloak. The fabric was heavy when he settled it around your shoulders, red and black draped over ivory. His fingers brushed the back of your neck as he fastened it.
When he kissed you, it was steady and deliberate. His hand firm at your waist, your hand placed on shoulder as is mouth met yours. Firm, controlled and possessive in a way that made your pulse stutter. Your first kiss.
The Sept disappeared, the crowd, the eyes, your sister. There was only the feeling of him, the press of his lips against your own. It felt right.
When he withdrew, it was slow, his gaze now dark searched yours briefly, as if looking for something.
You gave him a small, polite smile, despite your heart hamming out of your chest. It was just a kiss you told yourself.
The court erupted into applause. You turned together, descending the altar steps as husband and wife.
His hand did not leave yours.
⸻
The feast blurred, congratulations, gifts presented, smiles too wide. Ladies who had once whispered now curtsied deeply to their princess and future queen.
You endured it, you had always endured. But this time you had Baelor’s hand in yours.
When the first dance was called, he led you to the center of the hall. The music was slower now. Lower.
His hand settled at your waist again, familiar as your hand rose up to his shoulders.
The dance was a simple one, but he was a good lead, your feet following him effortlessly.
“They were not lilies” you said eyes fixed on his doublet.
“No” he said quietly, guiding you into the first turn.
Your throat felt tight “Thank you” you say eyes reaching his.
His gaze darkened but he said nothing more.
The dance ended too soon, or perhaps not soon enough.
⸻————————————
When at last the feast began to thin, the time came. The bedding ceremony. Tradition demanded it.
You were escorted from the hall amid laughter and crude encouragement from lesser lords emboldened by wine.
You kept your chin lifted, you had survived worse.
As they pulled the dress from your skin, leaving you in your simple shift. You stumbled into the chamber, the laugher fading as the doors closed.
The hearth was lit and the candles burned low, the large chamber bathed in a warm low light.
You turned slowly, he stood a few paces away, his own doublet removed just in his shirt and breeches
“Your Grace” you said softly, formal even now.
His expression changed at that, you mistook it for impatience.
He stepped forward “You may call me husband now, or simply Baelor” he said quietly his voice carrying a rough edge
You swallowed “Yes… husband” The word felt foreign on your tongue.
He reached for the circlet in your hair, removing it gently, setting it aside
You held still, you had prepared yourself for duty. You had not prepared for the way he was looking at you.
“I shall endeavor not to disappoint you” you said softly.
Something in his expression hardened in an emotion you could not recognise “You could not” he replied.
The certainty unsettled you. You stood before him in nothing but your shift, thin linen skimming your skin.
He was close now. Close enough that you could feel the warmth of him, smell smoke and leather and something distinctly his.
You resisted the urge to fold in on yourself “You have been very gracious” you said carefully, mistaking his intensity for tolerance “I know this was not… your preference”
His brow shifted faintly “My preference?”
“Yes” You forced yourself to meet his eyes “I understand that affection may not come easily” you continued gently “You need not trouble yourself to feign it. I would not embarrass you by expecting” you trial off embarrassed
His jaw tightened “You believe I am troubled?” he asked quietly.
You misunderstood the edge in his tone “I believe you are honorable” you corrected quickly “And kind”
You gestured vaguely toward the bed, toward the chamber, toward everything that had changed.
“I know I am not…….” You swallowed, steadying yourself with logic “I know I am not what men desire”
Silence met you but kept going, because stopping would make it worse.
“You needn’t pretend” you said softly. “I know I am not much to look at” Your eyes finally meeting his face. You expect him to be kind. What do not expect is for him to look wounded.
Baelor’s brow furrows immediately “Pretend?” he repeats softly stepping forward, hoping he has misheard you.
You gesture vaguely toward the bed again.
His hands come up to cradle your face, warm and steady “I have seen the daughters of all the great houses” he says quietly, thumbs brushing over your cheeks, catching your lashes as you lower your gaze “And I have not once looked at them the way I look at you now” his voice dropping lower, his gaze following the line mouth, down your throat and the exposed curve of your shoulders.
“I have been exercising restraint all evening” he admits, one hand dropping from your face down your neck, his fingers teasing the sensitive skin there as you shiver in response.
He smiles faintly, something heated flickering beneath the gentleness. His lips brush yours first, soft, exploring.
However when you pull back to protest, he follows pressing down firmer stealing your breath as his strong hands pull you against him.
“Do not mistake my devotion for charity” he murmurs against your lips before he trails down your neck, unhurried, deliberate, as if he has all night to convince you.
You gasp, your body overwhelmed with the feel of him, your heart beating for him. But your mind, your terrible, treacherous mind focused on one thing. The word that struck you. Devotion.
You pushed against his chest, harder this time. He went still immediately, pulling back but not releasing you. His hands remained at your waist. His eyes, dark and searching, met yours
“This is kindness” you insisted breathe uneven “And I am grateful for it, truly, but you need not rewrite reality to spare me”
His hands tightened at your waist “Reality?” he repeated.
“You were courting my sister” you said, the words tumbling now, years of self erasure and doubt sharpening them “She is beautiful, bright and desired. I was a duty”
His expression darkened “You think I wanted her” his normally soft voice rumbling through his chest.
You lifted your chin “The court certainly believed so” your voice soft.
“I was doing my duty” he cut in, voice low and dangerous.
“And now you are not?” you shot back.
His jaw flexed “You think this is duty?” Hands tightening at your waist
“What else could it be!” you demanded, your composure finally fracturing “You are the Prince of Dragonstone, Heir to the Iron Throne, The Hand of the King. You had your choice any woman in the Seven Kingdoms”
“I did” he said softly, the words landed like a blow all the same “You were never my obligation,” he continued, one hand leaving your waist to cup your face “You were my distraction” he admitted
You frowned in confusion, despite the feeling thumb brushing the corner of your mouth.
“Since first day in the library” he said, voice roughening “When challenged the Sept’s account without hesitation”
You remembered the book of Aegon’s conquest, his hand near yours.
“You burned” he said quietly “Do you know that?” His beautiful mismatched eyes holding yours as your breath hitched. “When your fingers brushed mine, I felt it for hours after. Like a brand.”
Your heart began to pound.
“When you placed your hand over mine to still my fidgeting, I nearly lost what composure I had left. I wanted to pull you into my lap in front of every book in that room and claim you right there”
Your face flushed violently
“That night beneath Balerion’s skull” he continued, voice tightening “When you said you would leave, that you were never meant to stay” His jaw clenched “You spoke of vanishing as though it would cost nothing”
You swallowed, stepping back as he followed you.
“The market” he went on, the words harder now “When those men laid hands on you” His restraint cracked visibly for a heartbeat “I have fought rebellions. I have seen war. I have executed traitors without hesitation. And yet I have never known rage like that”
Your pulse thundered in your ears.
“And when you disappeared beneath this keep” he said advancing, until the back of your knees brushed the edge of the bed “I thought I had been too late again, to tell you”
You stared at him “Tell me?” you whispered.
“To tell you I choose you” he admitted, his voice raw and soft all at once “You were never second” he said, each word deliberate. “You were never convenient. You were never charity.”
His hand came to your jaw again, lifting your face gently but firmly “You were the only one who ever stood in this city and spoke to me as though I were simply a man”
Your lips parted, his thumb brushed your bottom lip “And you believe I would not desire the woman who sees me?”
Your eyes filled before you could stop them “You wanted her” you whispered weakly “You must have”
“I respected her” he corrected. “I admired her spirit. But I did not lose sleep over her voice, over the look in her eyes, the touch is her skin and how she would feel beneath me“ His gaze burned now.
Your breath shuddered.
“I have loved you since the day you believed you were nothing” he confessed
The word hung there. Love.
“That is not” you tried, shaking your head, words not coming out “That cannot be”
“It is” he spoke steadily
You looked at him, truly looked at him “I am not her,” you whispered, last defense faltering.
“I know” His forehead lowered to yours “I thank the gods for it.”
The room felt impossibly small. Your certainty wavered.
Your breath trembled.
“And I do not love you out of duty” he murmured “I love you because you are you”
You did the only thing you could think of. The thing you have yearned to do since your eyes first met his that day in the solar. You kissed him.
Soft, exploring, a tentative press that sends a spark through your veins. You part your mouth slightly, unsure, and he takes the invitation, deepening the kiss with a slow, deliberate hunger. His tongue slips past your lips, tasting you, coaxing your own to meet it in a gentle dance.
Your hands rise hesitantly to his shoulders, gripping the fabric of his shirt as the kiss intensifies.
He groans low in his throat, the sound vibrating against your mouth, the arm around your waist tightens pulling you flush against him. The heat of his body seeps through your thin shift, his chest hard and solid under your palms.
The hand on your face tilts your head back, fingers threading into your hair, and the kiss turns fervent, lips moving in a rhythm that leaves you breathless, your pulse racing.
Baelor pulls away as you gasp for air. Forehead resting against yours he murmurs against your lips “I've wanted this since I first saw you” His breath is warm on your skin. Before you can respond, his lips claim yours again, hard enough to make your knees weaken.
You cling to him, lost in the sensation, the world narrowing to the slide of his mouth, the faint scrape of his stubble.
With a gentle but firm push, he guides you backward toward the bed, his body following yours. Your calves hit the edge of the mattress, and you tumble onto the soft furs, him coming down with you, careful not to crush you under his weight.
He braces one arm beside your head, the other hand stroking down your side as he hovers above, eyes dark with desire “Let me take care of you. Let me make love to you” he whispers, voice husky, and kisses you again, slower now, savoring.
His fingers find the hem of your shift, tugging it upward inch by inch. You lift your hips instinctively, helping him as he peels the linen from your skin, exposing your bare body to the warm glow of the hearth.
The cool air kisses your flesh, but his gaze warms you instantly, reverent, tracing every curve from your breasts, your waist, your hips. He tosses the shift aside and settles between your legs, his clothed form pressing lightly against you.
Baelor lowers his head, lips brushing your collarbone in featherlight kisses that trail down to the swell of your breasts. He cups one gently, thumb circling your nipple until it hardens under his touch, then takes it into his mouth, sucking softly.
A gasp escapes you, pleasure blooming sharp and sweet “Bealor” you maan as he hums in approval, switching to the other side, lavishing it with the same tender attention. His free hand roams your body, palm gliding over your ribs, your stomach, mapping you like sacred ground.
“You are beautiful” he breathes against your skin, voice thick with awe, as his mouth continues its worship, kissing the underside of your breast, nipping lightly at your ribs, then lower, to the sensitive skin of your inner thigh.
He spreads your legs wider with his knees, settling more comfortably, and you feel exposed, vulnerable, but his touch is so caring it eases the nerves fluttering in your chest. His fingers trace the edges of your folds, not yet entering, just stroking lightly to feel your growing wetness.
He looks up at you then, eyes locking with yours, seeking permission. You nod, biting your lip, and he smiles that heated smile again.
One finger circles your entrance, gathering your slickness, before sliding inside slowly, carefully “ahh’ you breath. It's a stretch, unfamiliar, but he moves with such gentleness, curling just right to brush that spot that makes your back arch.
“Relax for me” he soothes, adding a second finger after a moment, scissoring them to prepare you, his thumb pressing firm circles over your clit.
The sensation builds, a warm coil tightening in your core as he works you open, his mouth returning to your breast, sucking in time with his thrusts. You moan softly “Bealor” hands fisting the linens, and he kisses his way back up to your lips, swallowing your sounds.
“That's it, feel it, let me care for you” he murmurs, fingers pumping steadily now, stretching you for what's to come.
Just on the edge of pleasure he pulls back, fingers leaving you wanting, his mouth curling slightly at your whimper of protest. You watch as he sheds his shirt and breeches quickly. Your eyes taking in the sight of his board chest, slight scars glimmering in the light. Dark hair peppered with sliver stands cover his chest, your eyes follow that trail down his stomach to between his legs.
His cock springs free, thick and hard, the tip already glistening, he takes it in hand Your eyes spring back to his to find him watching you, you gulp and nod.
He crawls back over you, kissing up your body and positions himself at your entrance, rubbing the head along your slit to coat himself in your arousal.
“I'll go slow” he promises, and pushes in inch by inch, watching your face for any sign of discomfort.
The fullness is overwhelming at first making you cling to his shoulders, a burn that fades into pleasure as he bottoms out, holding still to let you adjust.
Your face meets his as he kisses you, your forehead, your eyelids, whispering endearments “My wife, my love” you relax beneath him, capturing his mouth and rocking your hips slightly, urging him on.
Then he begins to move, slow thrusts that rock your hips in rhythm, his body covering yours protectively.
His eyes keep hold of yours soft, sensual, each slide of his cock into your pussy deliberate, building a steady heat “Baelor” you whimper as the pleasure builds inside you.
He grinds against your clit with every deep push, his hand slipping between you to rub it directly. He captures your mouth in lazy kisses, breaths mingling as the pace quickens just enough to tip you toward the edge.
“Bealor I think I” you don’t get to finish as your climax crashes over you first, walls clenching around him in waves. Your back arches as your hips rock against his, the sensation like nothing before.
Just the sight of pushes him over the edge, he follows soon after, groaning your name into your neck as he spills inside you, hips stuttering.
He doesn't pull away, staying buried deep, holding you close as you both come down, his lips pressing soft kisses to your temple.
In the afterglow, he rolls to the side, pulling you into his arms, bodies entwined, He rolled onto his side and drew you with him, one arm sliding beneath your shoulders, the other settling at your waist. Your skin still warm, your limbs pleasantly heavy, your body fitting perfectly against his.
Your cheek rested against his chest. You could hear his heartbeat. Slower now. Steady.
His fingers traced idle patterns along your spine, absentminded, as though reassuring himself you were real. For a long moment, neither of you spoke.
“Are you well?” he asked quietly. The question was gentle, careful
You smiled faintly against his skin “Yes”
His arm tightened slightly “I did not wish to rush you,” he said, after a pause. “If at any moment you had asked me to stop”
“I would not have” you said softly cutting him off
He went still at that. You lifted your head just enough to look at him. Your fingers traced lightly over his chest, following the line of muscle and scar. Mapping him the way he had mapped you.
“You frightened me” you said quietly.
His expression sharpened slightly “Tonight?”
“No” You shook your head “When you said you loved me”
His breath caught almost imperceptibly, his hands holding you a fraction tighter
“I thought” you continued carefully “if I believed you… and you did not mean it…” your voice wavered “I do not know that I would survive it”
His hand stilled entirely. He lifted himself slightly on one elbow so he could see you properly “I do not speak lightly” he said.
“I know” you say fully believing him. You drew a slow breath “I have loved you since the library” you confessed softly.
His eyes darkened holding your face.
“I loved you more beneath Balerion’s skull” you continued, voice trembling faintly “When you told me you remembered everything I said”
He watched you as though afraid to move.
“And I loved you beyond reason when you came for me in the market” you finished “Not because you are a warrior. But because you were afraid for me”
His hand tightened against your waist.
“I did not think it could be returned” you admit looking down.
His thumb brushed beneath your eye, causing you to look back at him “It is returned” he said with such assurance that for once in your life your mind listened
You smiled a true and genuine smile “I love you, Baelor”
He exhaled slowly, as though something long restrained had finally eased, bending his head forward and kissed you.
While visiting the Red Keep, Aerion mutilates his uncle’s most favored personal attendant. Baelor Breakspear is intensely apologetic once he finally discovers the truth.
word count: 16.5k (don't ask okayyy idk how it happened either)
tags/warnings: pre-canon, canon divergence (daeron claims it's a fix-it!), mutual pining, age gap, master/servant (reader is baelor’s attendant/page), lady!reader, no usage of y/n, no reader desc. other than having hair long enough to braid & body hair, canon-typical violence, mutilation, aerion is nawwttt a good guy, injury recovery, insecurity, hurt/comfort, moral dilemmas, pet names, first kiss, love confessions, fluff & angst & smut, (MDNI 18+) wedding night, loss of virginity, f!recieving oral, fingering, hand job, piv sex, praise, aftercare
A/N: taking a break from my regularly scheduled content to slide this across the table and run away :))))) I LOVE THE AKOTSK DILFS RAAAAAA!!!!!!!! I'm being SO FED by the fic community rn, it’s fueling my descent into utter madness… I’ve been trying to go easier on myself lately so writing doesn't feel so much like a chore and this was apparently the unexpected result (yay?)
(title inspo: "I Want You To Love Me" by Fiona Apple)
AO3 ⋆˙
When noble Prince Baelor Targayren’s most favored page was suddenly replaced without explanation by a steady turnover of less competent attendants, ones who did not know him or his routine half as intimately, nor did half as good of work as you, he took notice quite immediately. Not for mistrust of their skill, or disquiet over his disrupted timetables (although in truth, these newfound setbacks did the exact opposite of relieving the burden of his duties), but out of genuine concern. Admittedly, he had come to see you as something more than a mere servant, and your unexpected absence perturbed him deeply.
You had spent the better part of a decade striving to learn the minutiae of Baelor’s life and everchanging duties, but along with being a proficient assistant you were as well a constant companion. Charming and easy to get along with, Prince Baelor was better for the company. Luckily, too, for he spent more time with you than anyone on a day to day, even his own sons.
The most earnest warmth of his sentiment for you remained unspoken beyond deserved praise, but it was clear Baelor played favorites from the very start. It was he himself who had argued for your installment in the position in the first place, following the death of his previous page—a sour old vassal lord with little patience for tenderness or ornamentation, unlike you—and asserted then that a learned woman such as yourself had an equivalent aptitude to any man. The opinion had garnered quiet derision, but he never doubted his choice in the years you served him.
You were the seventh daughter of a lesser liege house from the Reach. A determined and spirited young lady of tragically few prospects but great potential. House Targaryen had been visiting your family’s keep for the grossly overdone nameday tourney of one of your elder siblings when Baelor came across you in the library, transcribing by hand the illuminated page of a manuscript— your replica an identical copy, fundamentally flawless. He knew from that moment he had to have you as a fixture in his household, if not as a bride then someone just as intimate. A ripe six and ten years at that time, you had been too old to wed either of his sons, and yet he could not command you wed either of his eldest nephews for then your destination would have been Summerhall in place of his own keep. Indeed, perhaps it was due to the ancient covetousness of his dragonblood that Prince Baelor elected to keep such a skilled individual close. He admired and respected you in a way it seemed no one else bothered to, and for that alone you had proceeded enthusiastically beneath the wing of his governance.
Your virtues did not end with skill and education, however. There was much to be said for your beauty and poise, the diligently precise manner of speech and dress. You had a kind nature and quick tongue even as a nervous girl first folded into the crown’s service. While not as worldly as his previous attendant, you were full of wit and thoughtful opinions Baelor eagerly sought to hear. And when Lady Jena died three years into your service, you did not falter in your comfort and support of him, even when the work became tedious where he slacked in his grief.
Over those years, your devotion to your position grew, and this pained Baelor as it did please him. He could not have asked for a more dutiful attendant— you who transcribed with perfect precision and penmanship, who waited on him hand and foot and seemed to predict his every need before he even gave voice to them. Yet he found that you did precious little outside of your duties, aside from sequestering yourself in the library or strolling alone in the palace gardens. He knew your quiet demeanor concealed a restless mind, for it mirrored his own in many a way. Baelor oft attempted fatherly advice in that warm yet firm manner that usually worked on his sons, encouraging you to take time for your own interests (for he knew you enjoyed sewing, embroidery, and illuminated reproductions as much as your studies and work), or to mingle with the courtiers near to your age and status, to make friends and perhaps find a worthy husband among them— though the latter notion never failed to cause a sharp ache in the prince’s chest, due, he thought, to the prospect of losing such a valuable agent and confidant to another household. It all fell on deaf ears, however, and you remained steadfastly committed to him singularly. It would be flattering were the man not so concerned for your enduring welfare.
Undeniable concern gnawed away at the good prince the longer you remained unaccounted for. To him it seemed you had vanished overnight without a trace, and when he inquired after your wellbeing the only answer he received was that you had taken frightful ill and would require time to recover in peace. In the end, you were absent from Baelor’s service for nigh on two long, agonized moons. Long enough for numerous letters and documents to have been mistranscribed, for his least favorite meals to have been ordered from the kitchens and eaten in quiet solitude; long enough that his visiting kin had returned to Summerhall a full moon prior, leaving the Lord Hand alone to his duties without the support of his unwavering attendant, his own veritable right hand. Something in the way the servants were timorous when he repeatedly inquired unsettled him greatly, as though the folk he had known for years were suddenly afraid to provoke a temper never seen from him.
Unease frayed the edges of his once operational focus, until there came a point where he could bear the mystery no longer. When the second moon of your absence began waxing, Baelor resolved to get to the bottom of the issue. He decided, with sure finality only afforded to a man of his high standing, that he been too long bereft of you. It was no longer a matter of disrupted routine—in truth, it never was—it was something deeply personal. A latent whisper, so jealous and insecure it shocked him, half wondered if you were not ill at all, and had instead quietly departed his services without so much as a word and swore the domestics to secrecy. The thought that you would so flippantly betray his trust was almost enough to enrage the famously phlegmatic prince, until he thought better of it. In no world would you, a solitary lady of such pure devotion to duty, ever depart without good reason, and certainly not without the formality of a resignation.
Even if you did vanish without reason, such an emotional reaction on his part was unseemly for a lord and master. A prince, no less. He was not your father or husband, nor could he truly claim your friendship for he was certain you saw him as nothing more than your prince, yet the lack of your presence felt intimately wounding. The long days and longer weeks solidified Baelor’s surety that he had come to consider you with love in his heart. He had invited no other attendant to sit and dine with him, or keep him company in the late hours after his duties were finished, when his young sons were otherwise too occupied to spend an evening with their father. Outside of you, he had not sought the genteel camaraderie of a woman since the death of his lady wife. Aside from his youngest brother Maekar, eldest son Valarr, and perhaps his liege lord father, you were the only living person he shared the most of himself with.
Sometime between the recognition of your absence and the decision to solve it, Baelor came to realize the true depth of his feelings for you; those which had been simmering in the quiet shadows of his heart for quite a long time.
And there was something tragic in that, in the tender feelings he kept so close to his chest for fear of overstepping and exploiting the position he held over you. Baelor could not fit you into a role that did not suit you, nor would he force his affections on you. His sympathetic urgings for you to find a suitable husband soured the longer he spent brooding in the hours without you, ruminating on the futility of this delicate blossom, until the very concept of you with another man, even one of his own blood, evoked intense discomfort. Alas, there was no other choice now that he knew his own failings, for even if you did return to his service he could not in good conscience subject you to such shrouded desire. You were a young lady, and he an old prince already once married; such feelings were unfair to you. You deserved more.
Passionate concern and a need for truth had heated the fire in his veins, and it was with this intensity that he finally found himself at your chamber door one evening, too long into your absence to be tolerated anymore. The prince felt himself mad without you.
Your status afforded you better quarters than most servants: larger and furnished, closer in proximity to the royal suites for the sake of dutiful convenience; more akin to that of a lady-in-waiting than a common scullery girl. Baelor had only ever been here once before, long ago when the old lord served him, when he lay on his death bed. Fear that such events may unfold a second time struck the prince like a mace. Selfishly, he had not for some time considered that you may verily have taken deathly ill, as the servants claimed. You were young and healthy, but the most terrible of sicknesses did not discriminate and would ravage the body regardless of age. The notion curdled in his mind like a black rot. He had been a fool not to see past the thorny briar of his own regard.
Baelor Breakspear found his hand trembled ever so slightly when he raised it to knock on your chamber door. The rap of his knuckles was firm and bidding regardless, presenting nothing less than the collected confidence he was known for throughout the realm. Listening closely, he heard a faint shuffle and quiet acknowledgement from beyond the door, and the moments seemed to drag on forever as he awaited your responding action. Anticipation grew in his chest, fit to burst like an overripe fruit. Footfalls came close and he retreated a step backward, surcoat robes shifting hurriedly about the ankle. He was yet unwilling to be caught with his ear to the door like a foolheaded boy. A bolt lock shifted out of place, then the door opened by inches.
Feet carried by a queer yearning and long-diminished patience, he had known not what to expect when coming here, but the sliver of haggard face which peeked through the opening took him entirely off guard.
It was your face peering out, doubtlessly. He had committed every aspect of your comely features to memory years ago. You did not appear ill, per se, but something was most definitely off in the yellow flicker of the sconce behind him. The widening of your single unconcealed eye in recognition and horror of the unanticipated visitor beyond your chamber door displayed a cluster of broken blood vessels, a vivid cloud of blood huddled close around the iris. A shifting of shadows with the pained twisting of your expression revealed a horrific gnarl of flesh carefully sutured back together.
A gasp and soft proclamation of his princely title; the trembling voice; blood-filled eye full of fear. Baelor pushed his way through the door with little mind for the impoliteness of the gesture.
✦
It was not a complete and utter lie. You were ill, in a sense. Abed first in the maester’s ward then subsequently in the solitude of your personal quarters, it had taken quite a concerted effort for you to heal to your present state. It was a devastatingly isolated period, in truth. No one, not even the maester, dared linger in your presence longer than they had need to, as though for fear one might catch your gruesome affliction like the spring sickness, even long after the cause of your scourge departed the Red Keep. Once the physical agonies abated, what remained was the phantom torment of the mind— the fear that you would never be suitable for public appearance again.
As well, there was the loneliness. That pervasive feeling was worse than the bodily hurt at times. You missed your daily duties as fiercely as the Warrior was like to miss battle during peacetime, and above all you missed the company of your prince. In your fever you longed to wait on him once more, to stand by his side awash in the noble glory of his presence, for your proximity to Prince Baelor was truly what you enjoyed most in life. Mere obligation was not the root of your utmost and unfaltering effort, but a deep, reverent devotion, the kind spoken about in song; kindled in earnest first by an admiration of his quality of character only to eventually be fanned into a flame of loving adoration. The soothing thought of his calm voice, that rich, velvet sound, carried you through the initial days when the pain was most intense and the thought of surviving most distant. The vision of his ever-solemn face, a balm to your strife. Those bichome eyes like the stormy cliffs in the east, one the color of frothing sea and clouded sky and the other dark as soil and stone. Your prince was as much composed of elemental forces as he was of dragonfire, each volatile aspect of his predisposition tempered to a pure benevolence the likes of which were practically unseen before in his line.
You knew an extended absence such as this would draw scrutiny from your prince, perhaps even breed resentment for neglecting your duties, but by no means could you possibly present yourself to Baelor in such a hideous state. To do so would be an offence not only to his princely standing, but to him personally, and you could not in good conscience expose him to such wretchedness. He was your heart, after all, and to openly invite such scorn would shatter what little remained of your dignity. You only wished to have seen those enchanting eyes once more, or perhaps a charming slip of that seldom given smile.
You loved Baelor Breakspear in the way maidens loved knights in children’s tales. Deeply, hopelessly. In a manner doomed forever to remain concealed within the shadows of the soul. It was immensely improper that a lady, a servant, of your standing should fall in love with the crown prince, a man twice in age your senior and a devoted widower at that. Jena Dondarrion was as good and true a lady as ever there was, with two strong sons and a husband so loyal to her ghost that in all your years as his loyal attendant you never saw him turn his eye to another. Dead for nearly as many years as you served her lord husband, Lady Jena’s memory tormented you most fiercely when your duty became of a devoted sort. While you knew their marriage had been arranged and perhaps not as intimate as a match made in love, you also did not doubt Baelor cared deeply for the woman. It was not as though you wanted to usurp her memory, not nearly, for it was you who still saw to the care of her garden— but guilt nevertheless sat heavy upon your shoulders.
Now, any faint twinkle of hope there may have been was surely lost for evermore. For shame of your affliction, you would have no choice but to resign from your position as the Hand’s page and return to your family to resume the burdensome yolk of “unwed daughter.” It was why you had been permitted the honorable role in the first place, aside from your family’s natural aversion to turning down an offer from the crown. Your father sired one too many children and had naught wealth or prospects to manage them all equally. In a way, this had been simpler than marriage.
The prevailing sentiment amongst the Great Houses was that it was an honor to serve a Targaryen prince of any sort, but privately, you knew the true honor lay with serving a man of Baelor’s integrity, above matters of status or blood. Baelor Breakspear was kind and true, a good knight and better man, a benevolent ruler who already nurtured the realm like a father should, rather than crush it beneath his bootheel. To have cultivated a close bond with him as you did, assisting his every need no matter how trivial, had been unequivocally meaningful.
If only it had not been brought to early ruin.
You were already run ragged by the night it occurred, practically overcome and all but broken out in a rash beneath the stress of managing the needs of a household more than doubled in size, what with the visitation of Prince Maekar and his numerous offspring, each more troublesome than the last (you did, however, cherish a number of them quite dearly). You were more than capable despite the fractures in your composure, little slips here and there, so Prince Baelor had assured you kindly.
So, perhaps it had been that modicum of praise or Baelor’s good nature rubbing off that emboldened you to follow the faint sounds of disturbance down the twisting corridors of the royal wing after the conclusion of your day’s work. Hindsight informed you should have minded yourself and continued along your way, to have returned to your chambers for the evening, safe and warm in your goosefeather bed. For then you would never have stumbled across the scene you did. But, had you done so and not followed the virtuous instinct groomed in you by your lord prince, another may have paid the same unfair price you did.
Prince Aerion Targaryen was the second eldest of Maekar’s children, but anyone could be falsely convinced of the assumption he was heir, based solely on the bombastic way in which he carried himself. Arrogance, vanity, and entitlement fell short of describing the cruel manner of the boy who thought himself a dragon in man’s skin, and you learned quickly to avoid him like the plague when his family visited King’s Landing. You misliked him as much as you distrusted him, and were justly horrified that night to find the door to his guest chamber tauntingly ajar, the princeling within ruthlessly beating upon one of the young serving girls. Her face was bruised and swelling beneath her trembling fingers, and the snow-haired prince was reeling back for what was surely another in a long string of brutal kicks to her abdomen.
It all happened so fast, looking back.
Your instinctual action was one without thought of consequence when you flew across the chamber and pushed Aerion aside in your haste to plant yourself between him and the defenseless girl. You were equally as vulnerable as she, but you knew her to be of only a tender two and ten, with clumsy, sweaty hands like to drop whatever was held in them the moment she became nervous. Therefore, upon noting the flagon of fine Dornish wine spilled across the floor and on the lap of the princeling’s breeches, it was not hard to deduce the cause of his fiery wrath. Whomever sent the girlchild here knowing her timid disposition was deserving of a beating themselves.
You could not remember having spoken a word as you stood between them, acting as chivalrous knight where there was none other to be found. You should have hauled her up and fled in that brief moment when the princeling staggered in disbelief, but you hesitated, and thus sealed your fate.
It was clear Aerion misliked the interruption of his cruel abuse, and clearer still he detested the audacity you’d possessed to touch—let alone shove—him. Dragonfire danced in those cold, lilac eyes as they fixed upon you and you never felt such fear as in that moment when he slowly withdrew the dagger from his belt. Tauntingly. He wanted to see the fear dawn in your eyes as you realized what terror awaited you by his hand. The blade glinted black and gold in the warm candlelight, winking in anticipation of blood.
“I will inform Prince Baelor of this,” you had asserted, voice trembling.
“I doubt it.” With the dagger he gestured towards the girl cowering on the cobbles. “This was only discipline. You will live to regret laying a hand on the Blood of the Dragon.”
His first vicious backhand sent you sprawling to the floor in a heap, yet that was the very least of his wicked retribution. Even when your head bounced off the cobble floor and the ringing in your ears muffled his musing on the misfortune of butchering a face “comely, even for a serving girl,” the gods were not kind enough to grant you oblivion through the ordeal. You were unsure if unconsciousness would have benefitted you either way, for you clung to the awareness of all that was inflicted upon you with the panic of a woman who feared worse tortures. Each individual molecule of your being was branded with the weight of Aerion’s lean body straddling your chest, the heavy feeling of the hand at your jaw holding still your thrashing. Every strike of his fist. Every perforation of his blade through your thin skin as he mercilessly carved your face to ribbons. Every futile shriek and wail stolen from off your lips until you had no voice left to scream with.
Passing seconds felt like a lifetime beneath his blade.
Blood obscured your vision, or perhaps Prince Aerion carved out an eye. The cloying scent of iron and sweat choked you. At some point during the assault the serving girl must have crawled away and saved herself, for she was suddenly absent when you regained a momentary slip of clarity. She would hopefully live to see another day because of your protection and for that you were glad. Even if you were to die, you would do so with a light heart. Your honorable prince would surely be proud of you, if he ever knew. You longed to see his face one last time before the light faded. Satisfaction in your small achievement burst forth in the form of a mocking little laugh, giggling mad and thick with bubbling blood, and invited another strike of Aerion’s closed fist. A muffled insult, “mad bitch.”
Once the prince grew tired of playing butcher with you, as all wicked boys eventually grew tired of their broken toys, he dragged you bodily from his chamber by the hair and left you to die like a dog in a desolate corridor not too far from the royal wing. No one would dare raise question against a dragon prince, let alone accuse him of beating two girls within inches. Not without risking their own head for treason. Nevertheless, someone must have heard your pained moaning as you lay bleeding out, elsewise the servant girl fetched help as soon as she escaped.
The world blurred to vague colors and sounds and piercing agony, minutes slipping into hours and days, until you awoke nearly a week later in a poppy haze to the horror of your new existence. The mouldering stink of your wounds was the worst, at least while the sedative stole away your sense of what was real. The bandages and swelling partially eclipsed your sight for a time, too, leaving little else to do but lie in bed and suffer a slow, agonizing fate. Your face throbbed and could scarcely be breathed upon lest the pain worsen frightfully, but that was the extent of your injuries. Blessedly—or perhaps unfortunately, for some days you thought yourself better off dead—Aerion had not gone further than mutilating your face.
No one made mention of the incident. The prince’s name left no lips within reach of your ears, though perhaps it was gossiped about in the kitchens and secret corridors. No one would bring it to the attention of the crown, that much was obvious. You sensed innately that rumor had spread amongst the domestic staff, but if word reached the attention of any lords and ladies of the court, none paid you any visits. You were thankful for that much. It was difficult enough to brave the nervous glances of your subordinates and minders.
You resisted peering into the looking glass for many a day until no longer capable of withstanding that destructive curiosity. The sight you beheld there in the murk of silver glass was gruesome enough to make you sick on the spot. The swelling and black bruising was nothing compared to the meticulously sutured wounds. Prince Aerion had carved a jagged arc into your face, across your forehead and over the right eye, curving down your cheek like a sickle to meet the corner of your mouth in the cruel facsimile of a grin. There was a notch where your lip had not quite been sewn together evenly, due to a shaky hand or the swelling, and left a keyhole view to the tooth beneath. Another line bisected the first at the eyebrow and traveled diagonally across the nose bridge, down to the opposite corner of your jaw. Some smaller cuts adorned the unblemished skin, not severe enough to require mending and already beginning to heal over on their own. The large slashes were so red they looked black, crusted with old blood and catgut stitches, the surrounding skin tender with inflammation. The vessels in your eyes had burst from the beating and it was but by the grace of the gods you retained sight in the one beneath the cut eyelid.
No one could stand to look at you without wincing when the bandages were still in place, then no one dared look at all once your face was bare to see. Even after the swelling and bruising faded, the scabbing and rot sloughed away; even after the mutilations were little more than angry red scarring, tender and itchy.
Hideousness was very, very lonely, but you became acquainted quickly, preferring solitude to spectacle any day. You settled into it like a second skin, forcibly accustomed to the skittish brevity of interactions, sometimes even retrieving meal trays from the floor of the hallway after a hasty, anonymous knock at the door. You merely thought this was another such instance— a kitchen girl barely weaned, too horrified by the rumor of a mutilated lady to risk giving her the meal properly.
This was what you thought, yet it was Prince Baelor Breakspear who stared back at you from beyond the threshold, at last witnessing firsthand the horror of your new face.
Panic set in like a lance to the heart. You tried to force the door closed on him but it was already too late. He had borne witness to too much of the damage.
“Your Grace!?” Your exclamation was entirely without thought.
You retreated when Baelor pushed open the door, entirely unfamiliar with the ferocious manner that suddenly seized him as he slammed it behind him and advanced like a man possessed. Those sea-and-stone eyes were alight with something frightening, that which sent you spinning away to conceal yourself even as he commanded you to stay put by way of speaking just your name alone. You could have crumpled at the sound of it on his tongue after so long deprived of him, were you not so preoccupied with hiding the shame of your disfigurement. You were too unsightly for the eyes of a prince in your sweat-soaked shift and slipshod braid, your face no better than a butcher’s scrap cuttings.
“No!” you wailed as you fled, “N—o!”
Snatching a dressing gown from where you’d last left it, you realized what disarray your typically kempt chambers had fallen into. Garments and used bandages lay strewn haphazardly about, old linens in a heap by the foot of the bed. The air in the room was stale, choked with smoke and stinking faintly of old blood and sweat. It only compounded the sheer mortification of your beloved prince barging unannounced into your chambers.
You were not fit to be seen. Not now, not ever again. A panicked sob broke free as you clumsily wrapped yourself in the robe and attempted to retreat further into your chambers, to cower and hide. But Baelor was still quick on his feet for a man of forty and something. A broad, sturdy hand closed around your upper arm and yanked you. Still, you refused to turn and face him.
Baelor was indeed horrified, but not for any reason you feared. True, the lady he had known was well put together, never a hair out of place, but he understood as well as any that especially in times of strife, dishevelment could be overlooked. You, however, had never appeared frightened of him before, never unresponsive to his direct address. The ache which had lived in his chest for weeks grew suddenly into a brutal stab. Laying aside all gallantry in a moment of maddened fervor, Baelor forcibly ensnared and twisted you in his arms until you had no choice but to face him. Your watering eyes would not rise to meet his and he burned with a disquieted fury for it.
A warm exhale of shock fanned your face as he looked upon you fully.
“My Lady, what has happened to you? Who has done this?”
The inquiry was gentle from his mouth but no less commanding, colored by the disturbance worn plain on his noble features. He beheld your whole visage now, or what remained of it, woefully unobstructed. You were certain he would throw you to the floor at any second, disgusted by your hideousness.
Instead, he held you unwaveringly fast against his chest with one thick arm round your back. The other hand raised, fingers tracing the outline of your face without quite touching. You could not bear it. Tears flowed freely and without end as you resisted the comfort of his inescapable embrace. Baelor had never held you, never so much as touched you elsewhere than your hands and arms—and once, a cherished memory, had he laid a chaste, whiskery kiss upon your cheek—and now he had armfuls of you, this wretched, miserable creature.
Would that Aerion had killed you, for you would not now have to suffer the agony of this horror.
“My Lady!” He spoke your name with urgency, jerking you bodily as though he might knock the words from you.
“Your Grace!” you wailed, writhing pitifully in his grip. “I am not fit for your sight. I beg, please leave me be!”
“I see now I have been lied to at every turn. This is no common illness you are afflicted with. You have been gone from me for two moons and I demand the truth of why. Who did this to you?”
The stern reprimand in his tone had never once been turned upon you in all your years with him. It stung like a slap now. Yet there was tenderness in it, too. A desperate need for clarity, if only to settle his own spirit.
“I cannot— I cannot say, my Prince. Please. Please, look away from me. Avert thine eyes!”
The attempt to bring your hands over your face was thwarted when Baelor wrestled you to your bed. He forced you to sit at the edge then followed quickly, close enough for his thigh to press along the length of yours. He kept your wrists imprisoned in his fists, not cruelly, but assuredly and without any intention of letting go. You would have felt less exposed had he flayed you of all your flesh. Rendered unable to cover your face, you turned your chin against the shoulder furthest from him, until he switched both wrists to one hand and seized your jaw in the other. You always fancied his hands, strong and lean, graceful in the delicate way they moved— but now those long fingers had your chin fixed, forcing you to face him alone, and you detested them. This tenacity, this persistence, it was thoroughly wasted on a wretch like you.
The notion of using his station and strength to bend your will soured Baelor’s mouth, but you could be as stubborn as a mule. Stubborn as his beloved brother Maekar. He jerked your chin pointedly when your gaze slipped. He hated being so severe with you, his delicate lady, for it was not inherent to his nature, but drastic actions called for drastic measures.
“There is nothing you cannot tell me, my darling. Out with it, I command you.”
His words brought a wobble to your lower lip. Tears streaked afresh down your cheeks. They caught in the grooves of the fresh scarring, following predestined paths down your face. You could scarcely endure his expression— that handsome face, twisted and furrowed in a fearsome grimace. The tight knot of his dark brows shadowed the blue eye, casting it as dark as its fraternal twin.
“My Prince…”
The words deserted you just as your mouth went bone dry. Your throat was closing, suffocating. You would die here with no air in your lungs. His hand fell from your jaw to press flat against your chest, fingertips fanning your collarbone, palm over your thundering heart. He inhaled deeply, a wordless encouragement for you to mimic him. It was a struggle to catch your breath for several tremendously drawn minutes, largely due to the pervading warmth of his palm and its separation from your bare skin by a mere slip of fabric. This was the closest you’d ever been to him, to true bliss.
“I-It was my doing, my Prince,” you whispered.
His face twitched in a questioning sneer. “I struggle to believe you mutilated your own face. Give me the truth, now. You have nothing to be afraid of.”
The visible weight of shame and guilt darkened your swollen undereyes and drew inward the pitch of your shoulders. Everything about this, your words, your manner, was absurd. Baelor was thoroughly perplexed, for what shame was there in being victimized? Surely you did not mean to think yourself responsible for this? The damage was extensive and severe, carving across your face like a vine of thorns. You were no less beautiful for the scarring, Baelor could see that as clearly as when he first met you. He still saw you beneath it, as magnificent as you’d always been, merely obscured behind the pall of grief consuming you.
Seeing you had not chanced looking away for quite some minutes and your breathing evened satisfactorily, Baelor’s hand curled inertly by the slope of your neck. Close enough to your jaw if in the event he was given cause to draw you back. Under any other circumstance he would call this intimate proximity improper and withdraw for your sake, most especially seeing that you were clad in little more than your underthings, but in no world could the good prince allow someone he considered a close companion to fall into such intense despair without support. Certainly not after you had been a fortification when he needed it most. Certainly not when he loved you so dearly. And certainly not when it had become glaringly evident that you’d been viciously brutalized.
“N-No, your Grace. Not I,” you tenderly corrected, and cleared your throat of a thick lump of unease. “But— I incurred his anger. I pushed him from a serving girl. He was beating her, you see, for spilling the wine. I took her punishment and more. And now I am… this.”
Baelor softened somewhat at the timid admission, though his resolve remained immovable. “Of whom do you speak, my Lady?”
“I… I should not say.”
Even through the overwhelm of shame and indignity, it was plainly obvious to you that Baelor was displeased with your murmured answer. The corners of his eyes creased with scrupulous uncertainty, braced in anticipation of the worst of your truth. He gingerly cupped the side of your head and it took every ounce of restraint not to nuzzle into his palm. The intensity of his expression mellowed but did not vanish altogether; transformed rather into something more direct and concerned. It was then you noticed the wet sheen of his eyes.
“My sweet girl. I insist you must tell me who did this terrible thing to you.”
Shaking your head as if to deny his interrogation, to deny the sore veracity of your claim, the name yet slipped from your lips in a furtive, breathless whisper. “Your Grace, it was your nephew, Prince Aerion who did it.”
Baelor Breakspear went rigid as stone, save for the furious tremor in his hands and in his breath. He pursed his mouth in a thin line and allowed his gaze to drop momentarily. A tear dripped unbidden from his blue eye and slipped into the bramble of his hoary beard, the first raindrop of a storm. He could not stand to look at her while such volatile feelings coursed like fire through his veins. Maekar had always been the short-tempered brother amongst the four of them, and Baelor the most reasonable, but the issue of his nephew’s burgeoning cruelty had seeded an unnatural germ of blackened rot within the royal family.
He did not for a moment doubt your attestation, nor the claim Aerion had savaged another of his servants before you. That he had not been informed immediately was another complication entirely, the responsibility of which laid elsewhere than upon your head. His nephew was of the royal blood, for true, but such ignoble behavior simply could not go unpunished, by his father’s hand or Baelor’s own. Wickedness was meant to be nipped in the bud, not permitted to thrive and choke out the garden. It was clear his brother’s fool boy had meant to leave you disfigured, maimed. Left to suffer a life of whispers and ridicule for the crime of being more knightly than himself.
The first words Baelor managed to conjure were enough to turn his innards to ice with the dread of their outcome. Yet duty compelled him to face the horror of what his kin had wrought. “My Lady, did he… Did he harm you elsewhere?”
“No! No… T’was only my face he maimed…” You shied, regretting having spoken at all. The implication was clear enough, and you were promptly mortified at the discussional insinuation of your womanly virtue— with the object of your affections, no less. “Forgive me, your Grace. He is your blood. I mustn’t speak ill—”
Overcome by a swell of sorrow for your calamity, Baelor leant forward and pressed a lingering kiss to your cheek, killing that pitiful groveling where it lay on your tongue. The salt of your tears wetted his lips, and the most severe of frowns deepened the creases bracketing his mouth. He was only so relieved to learn the fool boy had not abused you further.
“It matters not that Aerion is my nephew,” he said in the even cadence of a man much more composed than he felt himself to be at the moment. Overwhelm was beginning to etch away at his good sense. “Such vile actions brought against innocent maidens cannot be so silently tolerated. This misdeed should have been brought to my attention immediately, not danced around in secret. I am obligated to inform my brother straight away of his son’s heinous behavior.”
Baelor then made to stand and withdraw from you and in a moment of panic all you could think of was how you never imagined you would see him again. His overhasty departure threatened the loss of his warmth against you, the comfort of his bare hands against your skin. You surged up and grasped at him, all notions of propriety damned as you fisted his black doublet and fought to keep him squarely in place.
“Your Grace, please! You must not, you cannot. Prince Aerion will name it treason and I will be beheaded!”
Tanned hands closed around your own and held them there against his chest. Baelor blinked down at you with nothing short of incredulity. The storm in his eyes receded like the tide.
“My sweet, darling girl… No such thing will ever happen while I have breath in my lungs. No more harm shall ever befall you, I swear it on my name and honor.”
“Do not call me such sweet nothings, I beg.” Fat tears rolled down your cheeks. He was cruel in his kindness, your beloved prince, for he did not know the pain in your heart. “My Prince, I beseech you, allow me to quietly withdraw from your service and return home!”
Baelor startled at the request, more so than he did your sudden act of falling at his feet. Your hands were at his ankles more quickly than he could pull away, your kisses upon the toes of his silk slippers before he could tell you to stop.
“Why ever would I do that?” he questioned breathlessly. “How could I ever send you away from me?”
“So you will not be forced to suffer the sight of me!” You wept at his feet, staining the fine silver silk dark with your tears and spittle.
It was a pitiful sight. Had his brother’s offspring still been present in the keep, he would be like to beat the boy within an inch of his own life in recompense. It was a kinslaying thought. Sinful. Baelor put retribution from his mind and instead turned his focus entirely towards you. You needed him now, more than ever.
“Get up, my Lady. Do not sully yourself upon the floor like so.” He bent down and gently guided you back to your feet. His thumbs brushed your knuckles then tenderly swiped the tears from your cheeks. “True, it was before your time in my household, but I was once a warrior. I’ve the stomach for battle and have seen worse wounds than these. Not to say they are cat scratches, but they do not diminish your beauty. Not to me.”
“My Prince, you know not what you say.”
“Don’t I? Are they not my words?” Baelor’s voice was tight with heartache as he spoke your name low and sweet like a prayer. “I was lost without you by my side. I never wish to feel such loneliness again.”
The tender kiss Baelor laid upon your lips took you entirely off guard. It was nearly enough to sweep your feet from under you, brief and chaste as it was. His neatly trimmed whiskers were bristly against your sensitive skin; the sensation you’d thought only possible through dreaming was, in reality, utterly divine. The steady hands at either side of your head prevented you from chasing his lips once he pulled away.
Something else took root in his expression, in the glassy sheen of his eyes. He looked suddenly abashed, almost remorseful. The handsome olive tone of his skin had gone rather pinkish at the cheeks.
“I— I do apologize, my Lady, that was foolish of me. I fear I have overstepped.”
“You have not overstepped, my Prince—”
“Baelor. When we are alone, please call me Baelor.”
His earnest plea was raw and wrenched straight from the heart. Your own stumbled behind your ribs. The entreaty suggested an intimacy you could not have imagined ever coming to fruition before now. Something had changed in your time woefully cloistered. It frightened you as it did thrill you.
“All right… Baelor… As I said, you have not overstepped. You could not if you tried, for you are honorable and virtuous. There is not a bone in your body capable of misdeed, therefore no need to apologize to me.”
“I fear I am not as virtuous a man as you have made me out to be.” He paused, inhaled deeply, then appeared to settle on sharing something very grave. “Forgive me, my Lady, but I can no longer conceal the truth that I have yearned greatly for you in your absence. I was blind to the depth of my affections until I no longer had the pleasure of your smile and company throughout the day. I was a fool to doubt the sincerity of your absence, and a fool to have not sought you sooner. I have taken advantage of your kindness and proximity all these years and for that I shall never know peace.”
“Your Grace—er—Baelor, I—”
“Please, my love, allow me to finish, then you may rebuke me as you wish.” Baelor’s eyes fell shut, brows pinched tightly. “I will not force you to remain here, if to leave is what you truly wish, but I shall not force you to retire elsewhere for the sake of perceived vanity, either. I understand if my honesty has put an imposition on you, and shall not fault you for not reciprocating such feelings as these. Yet I feel you must know you are no less beautiful to me now than you ever were.”
Baelor Breakspear’s final word was muffled by the fervent press of your lips. It was complete madness, to kiss the heir without express invitation, but he did not push you away nor scorn your unladylike behavior. You felt yourself akin to a wild woman, tear-streaked and whimpering into the man’s mouth as you dragged him closer by the collar. You could die happily knowing the press of his mouth, warm and wine-sweet. His hands had not once parted from your head during his speech and now kept you firmly locked against him.
You managed a rasping whisper through the breathlessness of passion and disbelief. “You cannot imagine how I have longed for the taste of your kiss, my Prince. I am only sorry it had to be now, when I—”
“Be still,” Baelor gentled, lips brushing yours by a hairsbreadth as he spoke. There was a trembling quality about him now as he resisted diving in for another kiss, like a bow strung too taut. Your words had affected him markedly.
“Forgive me, Baelor, my beloved Prince. I do not want to leave you, not truly. It is mine own vanity that incites such turmoil in me, not any fault of yours. It has pained me immensely to be apart from you.”
“Be my wife.” Even amidst the tempest of so many other shocking admissions, the statement was rather abrupt. Plain, in a way typical of his somber manner. “If you have the strength to stay, then do me the honor of being my wife.”
The air left your lungs in a rush and you could do naught but gawk at him for a long moment. His eyes shone with sincerity such as you’d never seen before, so warm and entreating, more honest than any man in the realm. You knew then he meant it when he claimed the scars did not bother him in the same way they bothered you. You had not changed in his eyes, had not become hideous nor unworthy of sight. He wanted you for a wife, even now, like this.
“I swear by all that is sacred to keep my vow, that no harm shall ever befall you again so long as I draw breath. Even if you do not hold love for me as I do for you, I promise to keep you contented and well looked after, if that is what you wish.”
“Your Grace—” you gawped, mildly stupified and yet unused to addressing him informally. “I do not understand. You never showed interest in taking another wife…?”
“I did not seek another for my heart already knew to whom it belonged. I was blind to what was already within reach, and I do not intend to make the same mistake twice. You do more for me than any attendant has ever been expected to, and all without promise of reward or renown.”
“I have no need for either,” you protested airily, half disbelieving the words from out his mouth. He permitted your errant fingers to rake through his grizzled beard and leaned into the touch. “My greatest joy is to serve you, and ease the burden of your great responsibility.”
“Serve me as my equal, then. You have waited on me long enough, allow me to return the favor in kind. If, that is, you will have no other.”
“Foolish man, there has never been another. I have only had eyes for you.”
“You will have me, then, as your lord husband?”
Your mettle wavered, if slightly. “What will the court say? Will such a match not be deemed improper?”
“To seventh hell with the court! I shall decide what is proper and what is not.” He blew out a breath and continued unbothered. “It should come as no surprise to anyone that my heart would eventually be won by my closest confidant. Besides, the propriety of appointing a beautiful maiden Lady such as yourself to the position has long been a point of contention.”
The addition of the last reminder seemed almost roguish on Baelor’s part. You flushed at the suggestion of rumored impropriety. You were no stranger to it, nor the ridicule that followed you in whispers for years—a symptom of being a woman in a man’s world—but now the apprehension of public perception was compounded tenfold by the brutal alteration of your face.
Baelor sensed this agitation and sought to temper it. He laid a chaste kiss on your brow and tucked your head against his chest, then hummed thoughtfully.
“I cannot tell you how to live, nor what choice to make that will best suit you, but I can assure you that you need not worry yourself with the opinions of anyone who does not have your best interest at heart.”
“Like you do.”
Baelor’s smile was soft with compassion as he gazed down at you wrapped in his arms. “Like I do.”
Your heart brimmed so full of love that it seemed there were not enough words to accurately express the breadth of the feeling. So, instead of wasting breath on futile poetics, you nuzzled your face into your prince’s warm neck and smiled for the first time in many weeks.
“Yes, I will marry you, Baelor.”
“Good,” he announced, shockingly measured, then suddenly withdrew from you. “Now, let us breathe some life back into this stuffy chamber, hm? You will feel better for it, my dear.”
An incredulous little laugh bubbled up in your throat as you spun to watch him cross the room, picking up odds and ends off the floor as he went. “What?!”
“Well, I simply cannot have my betrothed waste away in an oppressive cell.”
Without further tarry he threw open the shutters and unlatched the window and let the salty night air rush promptly in. Your chamber faced the sea, and in daylight the sparkling water reminded you of his pale blue eye.
✦
The day of the wedding came calamitously fast. You felt hardly prepared for it, but perhaps no less than any other maiden was prepared for her own wedding day. You scarcely had room or time enough to breathe once the betrothal had been announced in the weeks following your reunion with Baelor. First he had insisted your wounds be seen to by a parade of different maesters, each more higher ranked than the last and all with the same verdict: that nothing more could be done to facilitate the healing for it had to run its own course, and that the extent of the scarring would likely be permanent.
Next, you were spirited away to a lavish chamber located in the royal wing. Baelor could not get away with folding you into his own quite yet, and by rights the private quarters would be granted to you even after the wedding, but that did not stop him from treating yours as an extension of his own, nor his seeming endless need to be near you always; sneaking in and out under cover of dark like a lovesick boy and not the crown prince of the realm. Yet even on blessed nights when he slept abed with you, he insisted he would not touch you in any way that might compromise your maidenly virtue, which he esteemed greatly. This primarily meant him sleeping above the bedclothes and avoiding kissing you while arranged so, to avoid undue temptation. It was a frustration you were content to endure if it meant he would be pleased— though you knew it frustrated him just as greatly not to claim you for his own each and every night that passed in anticipation of the wedding. He wanted the pomp and circumstance of your wedding to be done properly, so he said.
Your new chamber was larger than the previous, sporting a regularly refreshed bowl of fruits and the most splendid copper tub you’d ever seen; still with a view of the sea but now with the welcome addition of a balcony. This was where you spent a majority of your free time, embroidering little dragons on the necklines and hems of your dresses, or reading to the peaceful tune of waves and gull caws.
Little else changed aside from the scenery and your status in the Red Keep, though both were largely superficial. And, naturally, there was your prince’s newfound propensity for affection. He quickly grew more generous with praise and compliments, both for your work and—more frequently—regarding you personally. He recognized how the mutilation had affected your confidence in everything from your appearance to your capability as a page, and thus strived to undo the damage in piecemeal. His lips had memorized the tracks of scarring one hundred times over already, and grew to know the taste of your mouth twice as well.
Yet unwilling to abandon your position as Baelor’s attendant, you found yourself partially responsible for the wedding planning— mostly concerning the drafting of dozens of notices and invitations, and the transcribing of legal documents on behalf of the Prince Hand, which admittedly felt a little queer. When it came time to draft the invitation to Prince Maekar and his children, your writing hand shook so fiercely that Baelor took over the task for fear of you spilling ink across the rest of the day’s parchments.
As promised, he had not made a spectacle of the incident between yourself and Aerion; but at the same time Baelor had also forbade you to transcribe the pertinent letter to his brother. That was a charge he felt obligated to bear alone. Whatever was resultantly exchanged in the following letters was so vehement that Prince Maekar himself showed up again at the Red Keep in the following weeks to personally apologize for his son’s monstrous actions. It was clear both brothers knew not to subject you to Aerion’s presence again, elsewise he would have been forced to apologize on his own behalf. The humbleness and integrity it required for Maekar to take a knee before you and beg forgiveness with his brow to your knuckles earned your admiration and reminded you much of his eldest brother. It was not as if you ever misliked him or the rest of his children—for in fact you did quite like the lot of them given how infrequently you saw them, with one obvious exception—but the freshness of the scarring, both physically and emotionally, set you on edge at the thought of seeing them again so soon. Thus, your goodbrother swore to forbid his second son from attending the festivities, congratulated you on your betrothal, then spirited away with Baelor to speak in private on the matter; from there you did not see him again until the time of the celebration.
King Daeron the Good blessed the betrothal with all the munificence of a father who dearly wanted to see his firstborn son happy again. Seeing as though you had already been deeply entrenched within the household for the better part of nine years, there was little to do in the way of proving yourself worthy of the match to Baelor’s kin. They knew you to be devoted and loyal, doting to a fault even prior to the betrothal.
Despite being tied to the heir first in line to the Iron Throne, there was not nearly as much pressure on you as the second wife. Barring some horrible misfortune, gods forbid it, his heirs were already secured; there was no obligation for you to be of immensely noble blood for the sake of affixing alliances, nor an urgency for you to bear sons. A match for love had practically fallen into Baelor’s lap.
Then there came the sons. Valarr was younger than you by quite a few years, and Matarys younger still, but they too had known you from boys and oft delighted in your company. If either took issue with their father’s choice in you for a wife, it was not mentioned within earshot. Once, in private, Valarr even confessed how his father appeared more lively than he had in quite a number of years, not since before his mother passed. You could not replace Lady Jena Dondarrion, you knew this for true and nor did you want to, but you were nonetheless determined to do your best by the boys who would be your stepsons by law, and in that remain a steadfast harbor for them had they ever the need for womanly guidance. As well, it pleased Baelor that you had a respectful relationship with his cherished sons.
News of the incident and your pronounced scarring must have broken quickly and quietly within the family, long before you had the chance to be reintroduced not as attendant but as betrothed, for none expressed outward shock or made mention of it— at least not to your face. The servants no longer seemed so averse to the sight of you either, and eventually you began to wonder if their avoidance had merely been a figment of your tormented mind; your own revulsion with yourself transposed unconsciously upon the innocent actions of others. Could be they were just as disturbed as you and knew how to address the matter just as little. Indeed, as time progressed your presence earned smiles and warm greetings like had always been, and even garnered curious attention from the ladies and lords who had never paid you any mind before the announcement of the betrothal. Whispers shared amongst those courtiers were less than kind, you knew, for the intrusive glances and mouths hidden behind fingers gave them easily away, but as Baelor frequently reminded, there was no point in minding the opinions of those who did not matter to you.
You were informed on the morning of the wedding that Aerion would be sent to Lys for an extended period in the hopes he would finally learn the qualities of dignity and humbleness, that which he sorely lacked. Maekar darkened your doorway like a long, pale shadow and revealed the thoughtfully planned sentencing himself, though clearly it pained him to do so. Through the severance of the vanity’s silver looking glass you saw how the admission of wrongdoing and accountability for his wicked son weighed heavily on him, how he loved the boy so dearly it wounded him, and once again you found you admired him for it. Any man could be a father but not every father could love his children half so fiercely, even in spite of their failings. He was as good a man as Baelor, only an ill-tempered—mayhaps a shade more bedraggled—version. With a sisterly kiss upon his pox-scarred cheek, you thanked him for his fairness, and sent him (perhaps a touch redder in the face than when he’d arrived) to join his brother in preparation of the ceremony and festivities.
You felt you were in a dream as the hour drew nearer, until at last the chambermaids had bathed you and finished lacing you into your gown and it was time to depart for the sept. All things considered, the dress you chose was rather plain for a crown princess. One of your own make, you had yet to reveal the culmination of your tireless work to Baelor and were quite eager for his reaction. Elegant but simple, as was typical for your wardrobe, it sheathed your figure in a deep Targaryen red, with a neckline that sat low upon the shoulders and narrow sleeves which ended in points at the knuckles. Trimmed with the knotwork of your family in silver and gold threading, the garment stood as a symbolic joining of your houses, trivial as the notion was, being a seventh daughter and second wife. You were pleased with it, regardless.
Your feet were so numb in their red silk slippers that you feared tripping as your father walked you to the altar of the Great Sept of Baelor I. It was no secret that you’d never been the most prized of his numerous children, but in the days leading up to the wedding when your family converged upon the Keep, he presented himself as vastly more obliging, presumably as a result of your newfound status. His blessings upon the union had come readily, perhaps a touch overeager, for now he had the ear of the royal house and would mean to exploit it for his own gain. You warned Baelor of this upon their arrival, and your betrothed assured you there was no uppity lordling he could not handle. Despite his claim, he retired to your chamber the same evening in great need of a flagon of the strongest wine in the palace. Your many siblings and their spouses and children, whom had all for the most part managed to temporarily break free of their assorted duties, had evidently not been informed by your parents of your disfigurement, and upon reuniting in the entrance hall swarmed you with questions of varying sensitivity. You too had retired with thoughts of blissful drunkenness, and thusly you and Baelor made merry and complained lightheartedly of the veritable army your impetuous parents had spawned.
The ceremony was largely unmemorable, identical to every other well-to-do wedding you’d ever attended, aside from the glaring fact you were surrounded by dragonblood royalty and that it was you who occupied the altar this time. It passed you by in a daze of murmured prayers and pledges, and before long you were feasting in the great hall beneath the ornamented cloak of Baelor Breakspear, your lord husband.
Those in attendance whom had never heard tell of you nor seen your face did not bother to hide their intrigue. Askance glances and probing gossip swirled as freely as merriment. The young daughter of a lesser lord seemingly plucked from nowhere, alleged attendant of many years to the Hand of the King (it could not be true, for who ever had heard of a maiden page?) and now his lawful second wife. A woman with horrible facial scars as mysterious in origin as herself. And you did not mind one iota— for Baelor gazed upon you with such open and unabashed affection that it scoured away all thoughts of despair.
As the lauded newlyweds, the opening dance of the evening was yours alone to commence. Any notion of shying under the attention of the crowd withered once Baelor swept you into his arms and led you in the traditional first dance. Your ceaseless smile pulled taut the scar upon your upper lip and tempted a kiss from your husband, he who managed to slip a worshipful compliment against the shell of your ear just before being drawn apart by the converging celebrants. You were spun until the point of dizziness for hours and as well somehow monopolized for nearly half the night by an already quite drunken Stormlord, one by the name of Lyonel. He was rather handsome in a roguish way, and a wholly entertaining dance partner at that.
Maekar’s daughters disappeared with Matarys some time after the revelry began, no doubt to cause blithe trouble amongst the kitchen maids, and almost every minute you were not dancing was spent with Aegon perched upon your lap as he regaled you with childish tales. His eldest brother Daeron, half unconscious in his cups nearby, lifted his honey blond head only once to declare your face had saved the realm. You minded him not, albeit puzzled.
You lost yourself in merriment in a way you’d never done before, for this was the most joyous day of your life thus far. Belly full of wine and good food, spirits lightened by the swell of music, surrounded by pleasant—if eccentric—company, you could not have asked for more. And Baelor, your beloved prince! You watched as he flitted from lord to lord, extending gratitude and good tidings to all in attendance. When he eventually picked his way back to the high table and called for a toast deep into the festivities, every man, woman, and child turned an ear and listened to the good prince. He again thanked all in attendance, thanked his honorable sons for welcoming his new wife with open arms, and above all thanked you for deciding he was worthy of a second chance at love. Someone (Ser Lyonel, most like) howled when the prince bent down to steal a kiss (to which Aegon, still in your lap, mocked gagging over). This only prompted Baelor to break the news to the restive crowd that there would be no formal bedding ceremony and that he would charge them all with respecting this wish.
The cacophonous reply of many of the guests was remarkably drowned out by the resumption of the music, and for the first time since the celebration began you felt a thread of unease weave its way unbidden into your merry disposition. Thought of the bedding ceremony had slipped your mind completely, so caught up in the preparation and festivities as you’d been, and you suddenly felt very much like you’d escaped the headman’s axe. You looked at Baelor, imploring.
Knowing your mind, he spoke without prompting. “I have already been through the ceremony once before and found I do not care for it.” He chuckled to himself, though it was a sound devoid of true amusement, then gingerly cupped the back of your head. “Besides, you have been put through quite enough indignity, my dear.”
You preened under his attention, leaning into his palm like a flower in the sun. “You have my deepest gratitude, my beloved Prince.” Wine slurred your words only slightly; you were not yet without your bearings or wit.
“Better for it,” Maekar grumbled as Baelor resumed his seat between the two of you. “The Stormlanders would have misliked me to beat the likes of the Laughing Storm from off my goodsister.”
Baelor’s following laugh was more spirited and he permitted himself the brief pleasure of drinking in the sight of you, curled in your highback seat with his young nephew nestled to your bosom, half-dozing now like his elder brother a few seats away. There was fiery passion in his bichrome gaze, deep and hungry.
“My bride is quite the prize jewel, is she not? I shall have to keep a close eye on her.”
No sooner had he relaxed in his seat did Baelor rise again, and this time offered a hand for you to join him. You blinked, wondering briefly if he intended to dance once more, then caught sight of his entreating expression. Mouth pursed, eyes softened. Little Aegon was bundled out of your arms and into the custody of a tarrying nursemaid who would see him safely to bed, then with departing kisses upon the cheeks of Maekar and King Daeron II (who himself was beginning to nod off as well as his grandsons), you quietly withdrew with your husband from the great hall with the sound of revelry at your backs.
Making for the royal wing felt clandestine, and Baelor was almost boyish in the way he pulled you, giggling, into alcoves and doorways to avoid the scrupulous eyes of servants and wandering guests. He kissed you breathless countless times along the way, those articulate hands feeling up your arms and sides as often as he was able without tripping over his own feet. The pair of you finally tumbled through a chamber door, whose you could not tell— least until you parted for breath and had the opportunity to collect your bearings. It was revealed to be Baelor’s chamber, for the space was obviously longer lived-in and the grand four-poster bed sat against the opposite wall as yours. The air here was thick with the smell of him, of parchment and leather and sumptuous perfume; or perhaps it was just his actual proximity, that strong body pressed unreservedly against you.
Alone together for the first time this day, you were finally afforded a chance to admire your princely husband in his entirety. Husband, you adored the very word! He was resplendent in a silver-threaded doublet and livery collar of dragons in flight linked by jaws and tails, the pin denoting his honorable station fastened at the breast; his leather surcoat long since been abandoned in the great hall. Just this morn he had neatened his whiskery cheeks and trimmed the short silvered hair upon his head. Your beloved prince granted you a radiant smile and you felt yourself melt against him.
“I have been remiss in not telling you how handsome you look, my Prince.” You cupped his face and kissed the side opposite your hand, breathing in deeply the fragrant scent of his tanned skin. You nuzzled your face into the hollow of his cheek and hummed contentedly. “My Husband. My darling Baelor. Oh, what a splendid day you have given me. I think all in attendance enjoyed it, don’t you? Even Maekar seemed gladdened by the festivities.”
Thick arms snaked around your back and as your feet easily parted with the floor you were reminded of why he was called The Hammer. A shriek of giggles served in reply as he spun you round in a circle, to then reluctantly place you back on your feet that much closer to his bed. Baelor’s tongue tasted of sugared fruits and wine, sweet and heady as the act of kissing itself. His hands were fiery brands at your waist where they cradled you.
“Gladdened by you, most like,” he said. “You have been involved with this family for so long, my darling wife, and now you are truly a part of it. It is because of you this day is so splendid. Now all the realm knows what a prize I have won.” He stole another lingering kiss then touched his tongue to the corner of his mouth in thought after parting. There was a jaunty glimmer in his striking eyes, the blue one nearly as dark as the brown with its pupil blown so wide. “The night is getting on, my Lady. The dawn of a new day will soon be upon us. What say you, we retire to bed?”
Your answer came as a furtive whisper, as though speaking too loudly risked shattering the serenity. “I would like for nothing more, Baelor.”
His head dipped. “As you please.”
Your slippers and his boots were lost somewhere along the way to his bed, followed shortly by his ceremonial swordbelt clattering negligently to the floor. Curious hands slipped up his age-softened belly while he put aside his pin and dragon chain, then assisted in divesting him of his doublet. The white linen blouse beneath was soft with use and billowy at the sleeves, and that too followed its predecessor to the rug below. Stripped of half his clothing, Baelor Breakspear still looked every bit as intimidating as spoken of in his tales of glory. Broad of chest and thickly muscled through the arms, you beheld the majesty of a form which had only ever been suggested to you through the cut of his attire. Coarse silver hair neatly coated his chest and trailed down his stomach to the place where it disappeared into the band of his breeches; not a Targaryen silver, but silver like his beard, silver like shimmering moonlight. You swallowed thickly and walked your fingertips along the shadow of his abdominal muscles.
“This dress is one of your own make, no?” Baelor inquired softly, fingering the fabric at your waist. He had always expressed genuine interest in your hobbies and endeavors, and never failed to commend the work you shared with him.
You nodded bashfully, incapable of anything more substantial. His slowly meandering gaze was weighty with appreciation, lingering for a time on the accentuated shape of your figure. Sword-calloused fingers raised to trace the enticing neckline, just close enough to the edge that they ghosted along your soft skin.
“It is stunning on you. Red suits you well… I should like to see you in this color more often. You have quite a skill, my darling.” His fingers dipped into the hollow of your throat and felt the quickened pulse there, your neck unadorned by necklace or jewels. You needn’t any spectacular ornamentation to enhance the beauty already present in your features and figure. “Scarcely anyone could take their eyes off of you, least of all myself.”
A warm flush crept up your neck. Each touch was more gentle than the last, as though you were a skittish rabbit in need of soothing. You had dreamt of this moment for years, of your wedding, of Baelor, and now that it was upon you, suddenly you did not feel so brave.
“You’re trembling,” he observed, stoic but not unconcerned. “Are you nervous?”
Your shoulders lifted in a noncommittal gesture, eyes fixed upon his bare sternum. You could not say for certain what you were feeling, but you wanted to continue nevertheless.
“You need not be, precious girl.” The hands retreated from your body to instead cup your face, coaxing your gaze to meet his own. Baelor was so staunchly assured that you felt a mite of his knightly courage rub off on you, emboldening you to be strong. You loved him so dearly, your rock, your fortress. “We shall proceed slowly and I will be as gentle as you require. You must tell me if you become uncomfortable and I will halt immediately. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Baelor.” You nodded meekly, twisting your fingers in knots. “Would— Would you help me out of my dress?”
His smile was enough to melt all the ice in the North and then some. “It would be my honor.”
Those long fingers of his were unsurprisingly deft at picking open the lacing down your spine, and soon the sumptuous velvet garment gathered in a pile around your ankles. You hoped it would not wrinkle there in such a heap, but had little mind to pick it up once Baelor began kissing the slope of your shoulder. Your shift barely clung to your frame like this, and with your hair intricately braided and looped around your ears it gave him full access to your neck, much to his evident satisfaction. The man shifted close and embraced you tenderly, chest rising and falling against the curve of your back while you stroked the sinewy arms around your middle. Veins stood out more prominently the further down his forearms your fingertips trailed, until you had covered his broad hands with his own.
“You truly are so beautiful.” Lips brushed your bare shoulder, whiskers rasping against soft skin. The sincerity of his tone brooked no argument. “How am I so lucky?”
“It is I who am the lucky one, my Prince. For I have the honor of saying mine husband is the truest knight in all the realm. He who has dragon’s blood and the handsomest eyes of sea and stone.” You turned in his hold, fitting against him like a piece once missing. “Now, if you please, I’d like to finally be made your woman.”
Having waited long enough, Baelor set upon you with vigor, his kiss clumsy and full of crooked, smiling teeth that clicked wonderfully against yours. You felt utterly devoured as you fell back upon the bed, lips flushed and bitten, knocked windless by the man’s fervor. Dragonblood, indeed.
“My darling, my heart,” he was murmuring. “My wife. I shall worship you as I should have from the moment you stirred such feelings alive in me. I cannot tell you how arduous these many moons have been.”
A soft whimper slipped unbidden from betwixt your lips when Baelor seized your waist tight in his hands and pressed a kiss to your soft stomach. Your shift was rumpled and riding up at the thighs, slumping at the shoulders, and the gesture of devotion only then seemed to remind him that your skin was separated from his lips. So, without further dawdling, your prince doffed the garment completely. Nothing remained to conceal your modesty, and the actuality of the circumstance dawned on you dazedly. This was truly your wedding night. Although warmth enveloped you from all sides—the lit hearth, the warm night air, the wine in your belly and your husband’s hotblooded body so close against your own—gooseflesh prickled along your newly bared skin, raising the fine hairs on your arms and legs and tightening your nipples. Baelor’s gaze raked across your body like a tangible weight, and were it not for the unadulterated adoration in his expression, you would have hastened to cover yourself.
“Beautiful…” He exhaled slowly to temper himself, then dared to slide a hand up your flank to cup your right breast. “My love, you are magnificent, and I shall never tire of telling you so.”
You flushed under his focused attention, bashfulness curling in your belly. If someone had told you mere moons ago that you would be in this position, literally laid bare before the lord prince you had devoted your life to, now your husband before the eyes of gods and men, you would have laughed and called them mad. But now it seemed mad not to arch into Prince Baelor’s touch, certainly so when his forefinger and thumb tweaked your pebbled nipple. He had not removed his solid rings, and so the metal adorning both hands bit indentations into your pliant flesh as he groped hungrily at you.
A needful sound burst from high in your throat when he bent over you and kissed a trail from neck to chest. Charming teeth scraped the top of your breast in the suggestion of a bite and you squirmed fitfully. Your hands flew to his head, nails raking through the coarse, short-cropped hair there, and your chest rose to meet his face.
“I need you, Baelor,” you whined pitifully, though you did not know exactly what you called out for.
“I know, sweet Princess,” Baelor soothed. His voice was roughened and deep, as rasping as his beard against your belly as he slunk lower down your frame. His usage of the title sent a girlish thrill singing through you— you were a princess, and he your prince! “You must be patient with me. It has been quite a long time since I have indulged in the warmth of a beautiful woman. I want to enjoy you thoroughly, and make this most pleasurable for you.”
His moistened lips touched down just beneath your navel and you spasmed in surprise, half lurching up from your sprawled position to get a better look at him. You were shocked to find his face mere inches from your nethers, that hot, labored breath stirring the coarse hair there. Baelor’s noble brow was wrinkled, his eyes pinched shut and fingers anchored into the meat of your hips. He looked almost pained. You opened your mouth to say something, a palm hovering unsurely above the crown of his head, when he sighed deeply.
“I have wanted you like this for so much longer than I realized.” You gathered he was speaking more to himself than to you. “All you have done for me… I regret not taking you to wife sooner.”
“Do not regret,” you whispered, half smiling. “You had my love and admiration then as you have it now. The only difference is that I may now dream of my Prince without guilt.”
Baelor hummed thoughtfully then kissed the tantalizing spot he had previously, his expression subdued and mirthful.
“Lie back,” he instructed.
Perplexed and a touch nervous, you obeyed. Blinking up at the shadowed canopy, you awaited… well, you did not know what to expect. Situated with your fists by your head and your legs partially dangling off the edge of the bed, Baelor had crouched between your knees, preventing them from closing to conceal your modesty. One calloused palm slid up your stomach and stopped right below your breasts, using just enough force to keep you from jumping back up again if you spooked.
The prince’s name had only barely left your lips in the beginnings of a timid beseech when you felt his touch between your thighs. Whatever query you’d had died on your tongue and was promptly replaced by an unladylike squeak. Two mindful fingertips parted the lips of your sex and probingly rubbed until finding a sensitive apex that caused you to thrash most uncouthly. Almost in the same moment, his face pressed downward against the intimate flesh and nuzzled hungrily, as though he had not eaten his fill of the feast. The hand atop your abdomen kept you pinned but did not prevent your hands from flying southward, where one clasped around Baelor’s wrist and the other came down a touch too hard upon his head. You tried grasping at his hair but it was too short and only slipped between your curled knuckles.
You cried out, canting your hips against the stalwart glide of his fingertips, their press aided by an embarrassing dampness seeping like nectar from your core. The sensation of your wetness brought a dangerous heat to your face and one hand quickly withdrew from him to touch your scarred cheeks, testing the fever beneath your skin. The prince’s regal, twice-broken nose traced a path along the tender skin of your inner thigh and his bristled cheek nestled to the crease of your hip, eyelids heavy as he watched himself pet you open. You throbbed desperately, aching for him to touch you in that particular way once more and invite an ecstasy you’d never dreamt of.
“Oh, seven hells,” you panted, “Baelor, what—”
Your babbling was cut short in surprise. Nimble fingers slid lower to make room for his mouth as it sealed over that swollen bud; it pulsed in delight under the suckling pressure of his lips and you keened with reckless abandon, bucking ardently up into his touch. Any notion of mortification in the act that had been brewing was overshadowed by a tidal wave of sublime sensation. Baelor devoured you like a man starved, huffing and groaning as he did, as though the act brought him as much satisfaction as it did you. The hand bracing your middle dragged higher and harshly groped at a heaving breast, dimpling the plush flesh. Your answering whine was thin and high.
By the time he searchingly petted your slit, a fire had already begun building in you, nestled in the cradle of your pelvis behind the quivering navel. Your fingernails anchored into Baelor’s scalp as he pressed a digit inside you. The pressure was slow and unfamiliar, experimental, not unwelcome; made painless by your ample wetness and the prince’s own saliva. Back arched, neck craned, you could scarcely gather yourself enough to breathe— especially not when one finger became two and he caressed something inside you so reactive it set your legs to quivering and earned a breathless cry.
Baelor’s mouth parted only to pepper a trail of open-mouthed kisses all the way up to meet your lips. You practically smashed his face against yours in your fervor to clutch him, hands spanning the sides of his head like he was at risk of vanishing at any moment. Your beloved prince’s beard was wet and musky with your arousal but you did not care an inch as you nuzzled to his mouth. Those wicked fingers withdrew from your cunt after a thorough pumping to instead focus on your pulsing desire. Your resulting twitches and moans were swallowed readily by him.
An arm slipped beneath your head as a cushion, bringing you that much closer into Baelor’s orbit of enchantment. Dazzled, you stared shamelessly up at him. His eyes were heavily lidded, teeth peeking through parted lips in a suggestion of relish. His cheeks were flushed darkly. He was so agonizingly handsome like this.
You thought yourself on the brink of fainting when his fingertips found a particular angle and bullied it mercilessly. The sensation of fire in your belly coiled almost tangibly, pulling more and more taut until you could hardly stand it. Your head tipped listlessly back over the support of Baelor’s forearm in conjunction with a reedy moan, exposing your throat to him. Flushed lips touched the arch of your neck, then the taunting scrape of foreteeth.
“Baelor…!”
“That’s it,” he gentled. “Feel yourself come undone. Yes, good girl, just like that.”
His strumming fingers quickened in time with your breaths and sweet, hiccuping cries, until that surging feeling inside you burst like nothing you’d ever known. Your body spasmed violently, legs drawing up around Baelor’s intruding hand, your lungs forcing out sounds you did not know yourself capable of. You clung to your prince, your husband, hard enough to make the muscles of your arms ache.
“Oh, Baelor… Sweet Prince…”
“I have you, my Princess.” Grinning rather wolfishly in spite of his kindly tone, Baelor pecked your lips and slowly withdrew his hand from between your thighs. It then rested inert upon your belly, warm and reassuring, a touch damp. “How do you feel?”
You gaped silently for a moment, for what words had you to describe such wondrous pleasure? The septas had never spoken of such interactions between man and woman, after all. Limbs ever so slightly still quivering but not entirely without strength, you ventured to thread one foot between Baelor’s shins to tangle your legs with his.
Finding a satisfactory reply, you hummed. “I think I shall never want to leave this bed. I love you, so very much.”
Baelor laughed openly at that. His face creased handsomely with the joyful expression and brought an unexpected pang of bittersweetness to your heart. You had feared him lost to you forever in the height of your strife—then, when he had not even truly been yours—and now you could not imagine a life without him. Without this— his carefree smile. You caressed his cheek sweetly, savoring this rare moment of his untroubled respite.
“I will gladly take that compliment, wife. I expect no one shall question the validity of our union if we are not seen nor heard from in a few days,” he japed and chanced to steal another kiss as he folded you into his arms. “I also expect quite a few men here today wished it were their cloak you had been taken under instead.”
You rolled your eyes and scoffed lightly. “Surely not. I have a face only you could love.”
Warm fingertips traced the gnarled scar up your cheek and across to the opposite eyebrow. You found it difficult to believe him, though you knew in your heart that the good prince did not lie. Disgust had never once colored his expression, never darkened his eyes against you.
“You bear the face of resilience,” Baelor corrected firmly, leaving no room for dispute.
“As you say, my Prince.”
You gladly yielded to him, and in that yielding allowed him to resituate you comfortably amongst the lavish cushions of his bed. You felt swallowed by silk and goosedown, lit by firelight and the passion burning in your breast for your lord husband. Raised upon your elbows, you peered on in curiosity and trepidation as Baelor at last rid himself of his breeches. Now nothing at all remained between you, and for the first time you were simply man and woman together, stripped of the frivolities of class and costume.
Baelor was adorned in a constellation of scars of his own, some fine lines and others larger, each with a story of its own. His generous muscles were smooth and pliant beneath your exploring touch, his back broad and rippling when you snaked a hand across it. The silver-black hair that had previously disappeared into his breeches now presented itself to be a neatly kept thatch of curls at the root of his manhood, which in turn stood eager and thickened with impassioned blood. The alien sight of it intimidated you, but did not stop you from reaching to touch it. The skin there was silken and blushed darkly as you rubbed him experimentally. Baelor jerked and inhaled sharply when your thumb nudged at the weeping slit of his cockhead. He fisted the pillows either side of you in an effort to cool the flaring heat of his dragonblood.
His resulting smile was doting, if a touch strained. “My darling, I fear I will not last long if you touch me thusly. Please… Allow me to take you properly first.”
You wanted to argue that you had all night to explore one another, all week, forever— but you could not deny the temptation of his plea nor the draw of your own tiredness. You doubted you would last another hour awake. Exhaustion and the consequence of a number of cups were slowly fading the peripheries of your awareness, and a deep soreness had set into your legs from dancing all night. A pleasant fuzz had grown like moss over your mind. You at least wanted Baelor inside you before you fell fast asleep.
You nodded quickly and relocated your hands to his noble shoulders. “Yes. Yes, please.”
“Always such a polite girl,” he mused, ducking to peck at your jaw. “Remember, if you feel discomfort or pain, do inform me immediately and I shall cease.”
A small noise of acknowledgement was coaxed from you as Baelor arranged you: bedcover flung aside, the curve of your buttocks and backsides of your thighs braced along the tops of his, ankles locked behind his back. You watched rapt as he pumped himself once, twice for good measure, then aligned himself. His brow was damp and furrowed in concentration, a forked vein stood out down the center. You felt the slick glide of his cockhead along the seam of your cunt, first kissing that sweet bud which had brought such pleasure, then lower to the place his only fingers had delved previously. Baelor pressed an inch or so forward once he located your entrance and you sucked a sharp breath through your teeth, rearing back against the pillow beneath your head.
He hesitated. The Hammer should ne’er hesitate.
“‘Tis only a pinch,” you reassured, only half a lie. “Please, Baelor. Please, don’t stop. I need you.”
Baelor hissed softly through clenched teeth, eyes bright with want. “Wicked thing…”
You begged so sweetly and pulled him down by the neck and he could not resist you. He worked himself in slowly, as if that would spare you any pain— when all you wanted was for him to ravage you utterly. But, you did not raise quarrel with his gentle treatment of you, his new and delicate bride. The sharp sting had subsided to a dull ache by the time Baelor seated himself entirely within you, and from there it gave way to a sublime feeling of fullness. The intense pressure was oddly comforting.
Baelor Breakspear punched a quiet but guttural sound from deep in your chest when he withdrew only to immediately press back in, scarcely more than a hairsbreadth in measure but enough to be felt deeply. Your hands scrambled across his back, fingers sinking wherever they could find purchase along the shifting furrows of his ample muscles. Parted lips traced the line of scarring across your cheek, straight where its counterpart curved; not quite kissing, rather feeling the difference of tissue texture. Baelor’s breath fanned hot over your face, the taste of his sweat like the salten sea of his right eye.
“You feel divine. So warm,” he rasped. One hand fell to your belly as he continued; “You’re seized up here. Relax, my love.”
He was correct, naturally. Once you realized the tension in your abdomen and hips and permitted yourself to release it, the pleasure of his intrusion turned from a trickle to a gush. Your limbs went slack, body like warm dough. Every thrust revealed an increasing vigor and you took each with gladness, sighing and moaning shamelessly as Baelor’s pace steadily grew quick and hard. He could do precious little to conceal the pleasure he took in you, answering your sounds in kind with grunts and murmurs of his own. Baelor gathered as much of you against himself as he could manage, one arm curling beneath your neck again while the other scooped around your hips, folding you to him in a fierce embrace. Scarcely any part of you did not make some sort of contact with his flushed skin; you were wholly enveloped by his blistering affection and loved every second of it.
He shuffled to fit more snugly and the motion canted your hips upwards by a hair, your lower half elevated off the bed by the wedge of him beneath and around you. Facilitated by the changed angle, his inward strokes now hammered against something consuming and divine. You cried out and writhed in agonized pleasure, tipping thusly over the edge of a precipice you had not seen rushing up to meet you. Your body spasmed helplessly in the tight clutch of Baelor’s embrace, fingers like talons in his back, mouth seeking his kiss. You felt the heat of your loins constrict as if to drive him out from you, but he remained steadfastly unbudged. With a sweet moan against your open mouth and a stitch in his brow, Baelor’s own hips rutted with harsh finality. He rooted himself deeply and spilled within you. A strange warmth gushed from where you were joined and only then did the man uncurl from around you— though you quietly would have preferred he stayed crushing you beneath his comforting weight.
Baelor’s breath was ragged as he rolled onto his back, his stately face flushed and beaded with the sweat of exertion. It was doubtful you looked any more composed than he, with errant locks of hair escaped from their meticulous arrangement around your face and a sheen of perspiration collected in the valleys of your body. Your sex was slick with the trickle of his spend and your own moisture when you went to draw your legs together and turn towards him. Perhaps the blood of your maidenhead, as well, you pondered without bothering to verify. Your face scrunched, for the feeling was invigorating as it was uncomfortable, but you could not be troubled to do anything about it. Baelor responded to your movement without opening his eyes and gathered you to his side on instinct. He hummed and pressed his lips to your brow, allowing the chaste kiss to remain while his breathing evened out.
As a gratifying soreness began to settle low in your core and tiredness weighed down the lids of your eyes—one always drooped lower as a result of the taut scarring—you shifted to snare the rumpled ruby bedcover and drag it over your cooling bodies before a chill set in. Halfway through doing so, Baelor stopped you with a gentle grip around your wrist.
“Pray, just a few more moments then I will rise and retrieve a cloth to clean you with, my dear.”
His voice was a low gravel as he adjusted more comfortably on the pillows, appearing about as inclined to depart the bed as you. You could not help the petulant whine that built up in your throat in response.
“But I’m tired.”
“Fine, I shall go now so the Princess does not suffer.”
“No, don’t get up at all!”
You groaned loudly when he did not heed your pitiful plea and buried your face in his pillow just as soon as he slipped from your arms. Everything was thickly permeated with the scent of him—his soaps and oils, his perfume, the musk of his skin—and you could naught but inhale the reminders of him as you awaited his return, sighing and lamenting as though he had gone off to war. You supposed his bed would smell of you now, too. Your small claim upon his lavish chambers.
Baelor was still charmingly nude when he returned to the bedside. The chamber was several candles darker, all extinguished save for the crackling hearth. It lit your princely husband in a golden glow that only accentuated his handsome Dornish features. The pale eye was shadowed nearly to the shade of the brown one as he gazed lovingly down upon you, and it gave him more the look of an ordinary man than that of a noble descendant of Old Valriya. Baelor folded easily into your beckoning embrace but refused to settle until he had tenderly wiped the sweat from your face and the mess from between your legs. His touch was light and thoughtful as he did so—worshipful, it felt—and he politely made no mention of the slight red tint on the linen cloth once it came time to use it on himself. It was tossed elsewhere once it had served its purpose, a problem for the morrow, same as your array of discarded garments.
Your giggle was airy and not quite awake when Baelor scooped you up and nestled himself snugly along the length of your body, a tangle of arms and legs beneath the bedcover pulled childishly up to your heads. He scattered jovial kisses across your face, upon the filigree of scars and the tip of your nose.
“Thank you.”
The words were murmured so quietly against your languidly smiling lips that you almost did not hear them. Your girlish laughter subsided to a contented sigh and you burrowed closer as if to fuse yourself to Baelor.
You pecked his pointed nose, ever so slightly crooked. “What for, your Grace?”
“For agreeing to be my wife… It could not have been an easy decision, considering.”
“Nay, it was the simplest,” you replied, then yawned. Slipping beneath the current of peaceful slumber, you never felt so safe as in Baelor’s arms. “For my heart has always belonged to you.”
summary : you survive a plane crash ... only to wake up in a world that isn’t yours. they call it Westeros. lost and alone, you try to survive… until a joust goes terribly wrong and you save the heir to the Iron Throne, changing the fate of the realm.
words : 23k+ ( sorry, I yap a lot )
warnings: aerion, blood and graphic violence, s-cidal thoughts, sexism and misogyny, medieval-typical attitudes, political intrigue, power imbalance, and other classic ASOIAF themes ect ect…
a/n : ooooookay this is lowkey embarrassing but plz hear me out 😭 I listened to the voices in my head bc I love fics where the reader ends up in a different world. that trope has me in a chokehold. and in this one, you don’t know it’s a show. I just prefer it that way … it feels more immersive, more real + terrifying.
part 1
The first thing you remember is the sound of screaming metal.
Not the impact, not the ground, not the end. Just ... the sound.
It began as a tremor beneath your feet, a vibration that didn't belong to normal turbulence. You had flown dozens of times before; you knew the rhythm of harmless shaking, the soft dips that made stomachs lurch and strangers grip armrests. This was different, and vert wrong.
You had been half-asleep when it started. The cabin lights were dimmed to an artificial twilight. A thin blanket lay over your lap. The old person beside you had their headphones on, head tilted against the window. You remember thinking how tired you were. How, when you landed, you would call your mother. How you still hadn't answered your friend's message. How you had work waiting, responsibilities... a life.
Then the plane dropped.
Not a gentle dip, not the familiar sway of turbulence that earns nervous laughter and tight smiles.
A violent, stomach-flipping plunge that ripped a scream from the cabin, and one from you before you could stop it. Your body jerked forward against the seatbelt, your fingers instinctively clutching the back of the seat in front of you. Your hair fell into your eyes, your vision blurring as gravity seemed to lose its mind.
The overhead bins rattled like bones in a coffin. And then the oxygen masks fell.
They dropped from the ceiling with a series of mechanical pops, swinging wildly as the plane shuddered again. Training took over before thought could. You grabbed the nearest mask and pulled it down hard, securing it over your nose and mouth with shaking hands. The elastic dug painfully into your hair.
Beside you, the elderly woman fumbled with hers, her fingers trembling too violently to position it properly. Her eyes were wide : terrified and confused. You reached across, forcing your own panic down long enough to guide the mask over her face, tightening the band behind her head.
"Breathe," you told her, though you weren't sure if you were speaking to her or yourself.
Then you grabbed the seat in front of you again and bowed your head.
You began praying. To God, to science, to luck, to anything that might be listening.
Please let this pass. Please let us land.
The seatbelt sign chimed again, shrill and absurdly polite in the middle of chaos... And then came the screaming metal.
Louder than before, closer, like a tearing and shrieking roar that vibrated through the fuselage as though something massive had raked claws along the length of the aircraft. The sound burrowed into your bones. The wings groaned in protest, the entire cabin tilted sharply to one side, sending a fresh wave of screams crashing through the air.
A bag burst from an overhead compartment and slammed into the aisle. Another followed. Luggage rained down somewhere behind you. A child wailed for their mother, someone shouted a name over and over again as if repetition could anchor reality.
The baby a few rows back stopped crying for a moment, and then screamed even louder. Not the ordinary cry of discomfort, no, a high, panicked, animal sound that didn't belong to an infant.
Someone began praying loudly, voice breaking on every word. Someone else sobbed uncontrollably. A man across the aisle tried to stand and was immediately thrown back into his seat as the plane lurched again.
This is hell, you thought distantly. This cannot be real.
You remembered reading once that only one in millions of flights ended in disaster. Statistically impossible and astronomically rare.
So why yours? Why this one? Why now?
The plane shuddered again (more violently this time) so hard your teeth snapped together.
The shriek of metal rose into something unbearable, no longer a distant groan but a tortured scream that seemed to come from every direction at once. It sounded as if the aircraft itself were being ripped apart midair, its bones splintering under invisible strain. The floor trembled beneath your shoes, vibrating up through your legs, into your spine. The cabin lights flickered.
A cold draft swept through the cabin, unnatural and biting, raising goosebumps along your arms despite the heat of panic.
The woman beside you would not stop screaming. It broke and rose and broke again, high and frantic, right against your ear. Her hands were locked around the armrests so tightly her knuckles had gone white beneath the cabin lights. She kept repeating the same word over and over, though you couldn't tell if it was a name or a prayer.
The sound drilled into your skull, but you couldn't blame her. Across the aisle, someone was hyperventilating.
Then you saw her : the hostess (who had been smiling barely minutes ago as she collected plastic cups and asked if anyone wanted coffee) stumbled into the aisle again. The plane lurched forward so abruptly she lost her footing entirely and was thrown against the armrests. She hit hard, scrambling to steady herself as another violent jolt rocked the cabin.
Blood trickled down from her hairline, slicing a thin red path along her temple.
It was only then that you felt the warmth on your own brow.
You lifted your fingers shakily and touched just above your eyebrow. They came away smeared with red. You must have struck your head against the seat in front of you when the plane first dropped. You hadn't even felt it, adrenaline had swallowed the pain whole.
You remember her face clearly : blonde hair pulled into a tight, immaculate bun that was now half-fallen loose, strands sticking to her cheek with blood. Her makeup was smudged. Her composure cracked but not gone.
"Please remain seated!" she shouted, her voice straining as she gripped the backs of seats to keep from being thrown again. "Keep your seatbelts fastened!"
The plane bucked again, and she nearly fell a second time.
The overhead speakers crackled to life, the pilot's voice came through distorted, too fast, too tight. You caught fragments.
"...unexpected system failure..."
"...attempting emergency descent..."
"...please remain calm..."
Remain calm.
The plane lurched again, harder this time. A suitcase struck the ceiling and burst open mid-air, clothes scattering like frightened birds. Someone slammed into the aisle. The hostess lost her footing and hit the floor, scrambling back up as the cabin angled sickeningly downward.
You remember thinking, absurdly: This isn't how I die.
No, you weren't ready. You hadn't finished anything, you hadn't said goodbye properly to anyone, your phone was in airplane mode, your last message to your sister unsent.
You thought of your mother's laugh, of your father's pride, of your friends teasing you about overworking. Of the way the city lights looked at night from your apartment window. Of the life you had built, painstaking and imperfect and entirely yours.
And then another sound split the air — louder than the first and second. A final rupture. A violent crack like the sky itself breaking.
The plane shook so violently your teeth snapped together. The hostess screamed now, not composed or trained.
You could barely see through the blur of panic and tears. People were crying, praying, shouting names into the chaos as if their loved ones could somehow hear them through metal and cloud.
The pilot's voice again, barely audible over the roar.
"...brace — brace — brace — "
You tightened your seatbelt. Your knuckles went white around the armrests.
You remember thinking, with strange clarity: Of course. Of course it would be something like this. Of course I would be this unlucky.
You had survived exams that nearly broke you, sleepless nights in residency, survived heartbreak, failures and stupid break-ups... And now this.
The plane tilted nose-down.
The world outside the window was only cloud and blinding white.
Someone grabbed your hand. A stranger, surely. You never saw their face clearly. You squeezed back without thinking.
And then : Impact.
Not the clean finality movies promise, not the soft fade to black or the surrender of consciousness. There was nothing merciful about it.
It was violent in a way your mind still struggles to shape into memory. Bone-rattling. Organ-shaking. A catastrophic detonation of sound and force as the aircraft finally tore itself open.
You felt it before you understood it : a rupture.
A splitting crack so loud it didn't register as noise at first — only as pressure. The cabin walls buckled with a metallic scream that rose higher and higher until it stopped sounding like metal at all and became something almost alive. Something dying.
Then the plane opened.
The fuselage peeled back with a thunderous, ripping roar. Freezing air exploded inward, slamming into you like a physical blow. The pressure shift crushed your ears, the oxygen mask was torn sideways across your face. Papers, bags, plastic trays, clothing (everything not bolted down) erupted into a cyclone.
Seats wrenched free from their anchors.
You saw it happen.
You saw the row ahead of you twist at an unnatural angle. You saw bolts shear, you saw metal give way. A section of the cabin simply... disappeared, leaving a jagged mouth open to the sky.
And through that opening : People.
You saw them dragged toward it as though gravity had changed its allegiance. Hands clawed at armrests, fingernails scraped against metal. A man across the aisle reached for his daughter and missed by inches. A flight attendant vanished mid-step, her scream ripped from her throat and flung into the roaring void before it could fully form.
Their cries were not human anymore, they were torn apart by wind before they could reach your ears whole.
The sky outside was not gentle blue. It was vast and merciless and blinding.
A woman two rows ahead was ripped from her seat entirely, her hair streaming behind her like a banner as she disappeared through the fractured hull. Her scream cut off so abruptly it felt like someone had switched off the world.
Then the old woman beside you was taken.
One moment she was there : fingers digging into the armrests, eyes wide behind the plastic of the oxygen mask you had secured for her.
The next, the wind claimed her.
The decompression tore her sideways with terrifying force. Her frail body slammed against the jagged edge of torn metal where the fuselage had split open. You heard the sickening crack as her head struck steel and then the gale swallowed her entirely, dragging her into the open sky before you could even reach for her.
Her seatbelt had failed... or snapped... or simply hadn't been enough.
She was gone. Vanished into blue and white and screaming air.
Your mind refused to process it.
It rejected the image outright, like a corrupted file it could not open. There was no space in you for the reality of what you had just witnessed. No room for grief or horror. Only blank, stunned disbelief as your brain struggled to protect you from the impossible truth: You're watching people die in front of you, soon, you'll be next. This isn't happening. This cannot be happening.
But it was.
The force inside the cabin became unbearable. Air howled past your ears so violently you couldn't hear yourself think. The cold was immediate and savage, biting through your clothes, through your skin, straight into your bones.
Your shoulder slammed hard against the armrest as something heavy (maybe luggage? maybe part of the overhead panel?) struck you from the side. Pain burst down your arm. Your head snapped forward and collided with the seat in front of you. You tasted blood instantly, metallic and warm against your tongue.
You forced your eyes shut, you couldn't watch another person be swallowed by the sky.
The aircraft twisted again — harder this time. The floor tilted at an impossible angle. Your body lifted against the restraints of your seatbelt, straining forward as if the plane were trying to fling you out with the rest of its insides.
The noise became everything, metal tearing, wind screaming, people praying, you screaming, children crying, structural beams snapping like bones.
It felt as though the plane itself was being peeled apart layer by layer, like a tin can crushed in a giant's fist.
Something slammed into your shoulder again — hard enough to steal your breath. Another impact glanced off the side of your head. White light burst behind your eyelids, brilliant and blinding. Your vision fractured into shards of brightness even with your eyes closed.
For one split second, time stretched.
You thought of your mother again, of your father standing in the kitchen doorway, of your best friend laughing at something stupid you said last week, of your siblings and their stupid antics, of the unfinished emails on your laptop, of how statistically impossible this was.
One in millions.
And yet : you.
Of course it would be you, the plane lurched into what felt like a final, catastrophic roll.
Your stomach flipped, your ribs screamed, and your skull rang.
And then the white consumed everything, not darkness, not peace, no, just an all-devouring, obliterating white.
And then — silence. Not even wind, not even fire.
Just silence.
You wake with a violent, choking gasp, as though you have just been pulled up from deep water. Air floods into your lungs too quickly, and your throat burns the instant it expands. You cough hard, the sound scraping out of you, and roll onto your side, clutching at the ground beneath you as if the earth itself might shift again.
It doesn't.
The soil is cool and damp under your palms. Real and solid. Packed with roots and fallen leaves that press into your skin. You inhale again, slower this time, and the air tastes nothing like smoke or jet fuel or burned plastic. It smells green, wet, and of course ... alive.
Your eyes snap open fully, you expect chaos.
You expect twisted metal impaled into the earth at impossible angles, smoke rising in thick black columns against the sky. You expect fire. You expect the distant crackle of burning debris, the hiss of ruptured fuel lines, the groan of wreckage settling into ruin. You expect screams — injured passengers crying for help, someone calling a name over and over again.
There is none of it.
You push yourself up onto your elbows, your entire body trembling with adrenaline that hasn't yet understood it no longer has anything to fight. Your vision blurs for a moment before sharpening, and what you see makes no sense at all.
You are in a forest.
Not at the edge of one. Not near a clearing gouged into the earth by impact, not beside shattered wings lodged between tree trunks.
You are in the middle of it.
Tall trees surround you in every direction, their trunks thick and ancient, bark ridged and moss-covered. Sunlight filters down through a dense canopy of leaves, scattering in soft green shafts that move gently with the breeze. Birds flit between branches overhead, chirping as though the world is undisturbed. Insects hum somewhere in the underbrush.
You turn your head to the left, then to the right, your pulse beginning to pound harder.
No smoke, no debris, no smell of burning.
What the actual fuck ?
Your mind scrambles for something reasonable to hold onto. Perhaps you were thrown clear? Perhaps the plane crashed miles away and you were flung by force farther than seems possible? Maybe the wreckage is beyond the trees? Maybe you landed on softer ground. Maybe —
You force yourself to your feet, swaying immediately as dizziness sweeps through you. Your ribs ache when you straighten, you let out a deep groan, bruised pain that makes breathing uncomfortable. Your shoulder throbs where something struck it. There is a heavy pulse at the back of your skull, and when you raise trembling fingers to your brow, they brush against dried blood crusted along your hairline.
You turn in a slow circle.
If there had been a crash, the forest would not look like this.
There would be a path carved through trees, splintered trunks. A scar across the earth where the fuselage tore forward. There would be luggage scattered between roots, torn seats, shredded fabric caught on branches. Something.
There is nothing.
No torn seats scattered across a field, no broken windows glinting in the dirt. No black box half-buried in soil. No burning wing lodged against bark. No emergency slide tangled among the trees. No bodies lying still and terrible in the grass.
Not even a distant sound.
The silence is wrong. So, so wrong.
You step forward carefully, scanning the ground as if something might materialize if you look hard enough. The leaves are undisturbed except for where you must have fallen, the earth bears no sign of violent impact. No gouge, no crater, not even a trail of destruction.
It is as though the sky never tore open.
As though the plane never existed.
Your breathing grows uneven again, though this time it isn't from smoke or altitude. It is from the creeping, suffocating realization that there is no logical explanation for what you are seeing.
Even if you had been thrown clear of the wreckage, even if by some impossible miracle you were the only survivor, there would be proof. Physics would demand it.
Instead, the forest stands whole and indifferent around you, untouched by catastrophe.
You open your mouth and call out, your voice raw from earlier screams. "Hello?!"
The word travels through the trees and fades without resistance.
You wait, but nothing answers.
You try again, louder now, desperation creeping into your voice despite your attempt to control it.
"Is anyone there?!"
Only birds take flight from a nearby branch, startled into brief motion before settling again.
No engines in the distance, no sirens, no shouts of other survivors.
Just wind sliding softly through leaves.
Your heart begins to race in a different way now — not from imminent death, but from the unbearable impossibility of survival without context. You are standing in a place that does not match the disaster you remember.
"Help!" your sore throat rasps again, cracking under the strain. "Please... somebody help me!"
It comes out as more of a sob than a shout now, ragged and desperate, and still there is nothing — only the distant rustle of leaves and the occasional chirp of birds. Your voice barely carries; it feels swallowed by the air itself, broken by fear and exhaustion.
Your eyes sting, blurry from the tears and sweat, and you have to blink several times before you can even recognize the forest around you. Your ears ring, your ribs ache sharply with each breath.
With great effort, you push yourself up on shaking arms. Your palms scrape along rough bark and damp earth, the sting biting into your skin. Your clothes are torn, fabric shredded in places from the crash or the fall. You touch your hair and find dried blood crusted along your hairline and temple. A deep, pounding ache throbs behind your right ear.
Your shoulder hurts, you glance down and see it : blood has soaked through your thin, now-ruined jacket. A shard of wood protrudes from the flesh, jagged and cruel. Your fingers hover above it, trembling. Your mind (your trained, rational, doctor's mind) knows not to touch it. Any interference now could risk infection, make it worse. So you hold back, unable to do anything but watch it, wishing you had antiseptic, wishing you had scissors, wishing you weren't alone.
Even so, your instinct drives you forward. You force your voice out again, hoarse and raw, dragging it from deep in your chest. "Help... please... anyone!"
It burns. Every syllable scorches your throat as it catches on cracked vocal cords. You bite your lip to hold back tears, but they slide anyway. The damp earth under your knees makes it worse, cold and gritty, mixing with blood and sweat.
No answer comes.
Nothing but the forest. The too-green, too-alive forest.
You are utterly, and impossibly alone.
One step after another, you force yourself to move.
Part of your mind keeps whispering, maybe help is on the way, maybe someone is coming for you, but you know it's a lie your fear wants you to cling to. You can't wait, you have to keep going, hoping that if you stumble through the trees long enough, maybe you'll find someone, anyone, alive.
But no one comes.
Hours pass, though time feels fractured. The sun sinks low, bleeding red behind the branches, and when you finally emerge from the forest, night has already claimed the sky. Your legs are raw and trembling. Hunger gnaws at your stomach until it feels hollow. Your throat is raw from screaming and thirst, each swallow a burning reminder of how little you've had to sustain yourself.
You don't even know how you survived — after the crash, the terror, the running, the empty hours with nothing but your own ragged breaths. Maybe you drank from a lake along the way. Maybe you didn't. Your body doesn't care or remember. It just wants to survive.
And then, as the forest finally thins, there it is.
A village.
Thatched roofs, crooked and low, their beams dark with smoke curling lazily into the evening sky. Mud streets winding between timber-framed houses. Chimneys spewing pale tendrils of smoke. Men in rough wool tunics and patched leather boots, women in coarse linen dresses and aprons, children barefoot and darting through the dirt, laughing or crying or both.
You stop dead, your pulse spikes.
Where the fuck are you?
Where are the roads, the cars, the electricity lines, the streetlights, the convenience stores? The reality of it presses in on you like a hand around your throat.
For a brief, ridiculous second, you think maybe it's a reenactment. A film set, a medieval festival somewhere. Or a commune — maybe some strange, isolated community living like it's centuries ago. You pin the idea to the thin hope that your mind is just trying to explain this insane impossibility.
But then you step closer.
You enter the village proper, the mud streets narrowing underfoot, the smell of woodsmoke and cooking fire heavy in your nose. And immediately, people begin to look at you.
The stares are piercing, curious, judging and ... appraising.
Your modern clothes mark you instantly as out of place. Your torn jacket, your sweatshirt, your jeans — everything is wrong. Women glance at you as though they've never seen anything like you, their aprons and veils standing in stark contrast to your foreign appearance. Men eye you from head to toe, arms crossing instinctively over their chests, sizing you up with suspicion and barely disguised interest.
You pull your jacket tighter around yourself, wincing as the weight of it presses against your shoulder wound. The ache pulses sharply, reminding you of every step you've taken, every scrape, every cut you've tried to ignore.
Ignoring the stares that prickled at the back of your neck, you gather what courage you have left and reach out to stop an old man as he shuffles past, his gait slow and uneven. You catch his arm gently, careful not to startle him.
"Excuse me... sir," you say, your voice trembling despite your effort to sound firm. "Where... where are we?"
He freezes for a moment, his one good eye narrowing as he looks you over. The other socket is empty, a smooth scar where the eye should have been, giving his face a peculiar, lopsided gravity. His brows knit together, forming deep creases across his forehead, and his mouth hangs slightly open, revealing teeth that are mostly gone or worn to yellow stubs.
The smell hits you before his words do : a heavy, sour scent of sweat, smoke, and unwashed cloth that makes your stomach churn. Despite this, you hold his gaze, trying to convey that you mean no harm, that you are... simply lost.
He tilts his head, studying you in silence, his one good eye tracking every movement, every tremble in your posture. The noises of the village fade into a dull hum behind you, the clatter of boots on mud and the low murmur of voices retreating from your awareness.
"Ashford Meadow," he says gruffly.
"Where... where is this?" you ask, confusion twisting your tongue. The syllables feel foreign, awkward, even to your own ears, but you need answers.
"The Reach," he replies, before adjusting the heavy pack on his back and continuing on his way.
You swallow hard, your throat raw, and glance around nervously. A few men whistle at you, their eyes lingering a little too long, but you ignore them, focusing on keeping your balance and your wits. Is this some kind of movie set? you wonder again, though the faces staring back at you (their expressions curious, wary, almost skeptical) tell a different story. You must look like a mess: dried blood in your hair, your clothes torn and muddied, your walk unsteady.
Your gaze sweeps the village quickly, searching for something familiar, something that can anchor you. And then you see it: a tavern. Its wooden sign creaks slightly in the wind, and smoke curls lazily from the chimney. The doors are open, and warm, amber light spills into the street, cutting through the cool, green gloom of the evening.
You stumble toward it, hope sparking faintly in your chest, even as every step aches, your shoulder burning and ribs throbbing. Maybe inside, you can find someone who can explain where you are, and perhaps, just perhaps, what has happened to the world you thought you knew.
You step further into the tavern, the warmth and smell of smoke and roasting meat washing over you in a strange relief. Your legs ache with every step, your shoulder throbs, and the dried blood in your hair makes your skin crawl, but the human presence, any presence, draws you forward. You reach the bar, where a barmaid wipes a mug, her hands steady despite the busy room. A few patrons glance up at you, their faces shadowed under hoods or rough hair.
The barmaid freezes slightly at your approach.
"Good evening," you say automatically, though your voice cracks on the second word. "Please — can you tell me where I am? Is this some kind of historical reenactment? A themed settlement?"
She does not answer at once. Her eyes drag over your clothes — the strange cut of your jacket, the metal teeth of the zipper, the fabric of your shirt, your sneakers. Her gaze lingers at the dried blood crusted in your hair.
"Gods preserve us," she mutters softly. "What queer raiment is this?"
A man beside you, thick-bearded and red-cheeked with drink, leans closer. "You've the look of a hedge-witch," he says. "Or some eastern courtesan gone astray."
"I'm not either," you snap, then wince at your own sharpness. "I just need to know where I am."
The barmaid sets down the cup she was polishing. "You stand in Ashford Meadow," she says carefully, as though speaking to a child or a madwoman. "In the Reach. Beneath the rule of Highgarden and our good lord."
You blink at her. "The Reach," you repeat. "Highgarden?"
"Aye." The bearded man squints at you. "Have you taken a blow to the head, girl? You speak as one fresh from fever."
"Do you have a phone?" you ask suddenly, the words tumbling over each other in rising panic. "Anything — some kind of device? I just need to call someone. Emergency services, the police—anyone who can track where I am."
You look from face to face as though one of them might finally understand, might reach into a pocket and pull out something familiar : glass screen, metal casing, signal bars in the corner.
Instead, they stare as though you have begun speaking in tongues.
"A... fone?" the bearded man repeats slowly, brow creasing. "Is that some manner of instrument?"
"Emergency," another mutters under his breath. "What lord bears that name?"
The barmaid's eyes narrow, studying you with growing certainty. "There is no such thing here," she says carefully.
Silence follows. A long, heavy silence.
Your breath quickens. "It's just a phone," you insist, gesturing helplessly with your good hand. "A small device. You can speak into it and someone far away hears you instantly. Anywhere in the world."
A ripple of uneasy murmurs moves through the room.
"Instantly?" the older patron echoes. "Across leagues?"
"That is sorcery," someone whispers.
"It's not sorcery," you snap, then drag a shaking hand through your matted hair. "It's technology. It's normal."
Your throat burns as you swallow. You feel the panic clawing higher, pressing against your ribs. You force yourself to speak more clearly, slower, as though explaining to children.
"I was in a plane crash," you say, despite the rasp in your voice. "A plane. Uh -- an aircraft. It's a machine made of metal, with wings. It flies — high above the clouds. It carries hundreds of people at once. We were traveling, and something went wrong. The engines failed... We fell."
"A craft... that flies?" the barmaid repeats slowly.
"Yes. Like a — like a metal ship with wings. Powered by engines. Fuel. It's not magic, I swear!"
The bearded man barks out a laugh. "A ship of metal that flies?" He slaps the bar. "Hear her! She speaks of dragons clad in steel!"
"It's not a dragon," you insist. "It's technology."
"Tek-nol-oh-gee," he echoes mockingly, tasting the foreign word. "And pray, what manner of sorcery is that?"
"It's not sorcery! It's fucking science. We learned how to build them, they cross oceans in hours."
The laughter fades. Not into amusement — into something else... Unease.
"One ocean is more than enough for mortal men," the barmaid says quietly. "And none cross the skies save dragons."
"Dragons aren't real," you reply automatically.
A man at a nearby table turns in his seat, eyes narrowing. "Not real?"
The bearded man snorts. "Not these hundred years, fool. Since the Dance of the dragons at least. The last dragon died in King's Landing." He looks back at you, smirking. "Though some say their bones still smoke."
You stare at him. "Dragons?"
"Aye, dragons," he says. "Winged fire made flesh. What child's tale did you grow upon, that you deny them so bold?"
Your heart begins to pound harder than it did in the forest. "What the actual fuck are you talking about?"
A few of them flinch at your language. The barmaid's brows draw tight. "Mind your tongue, youn lady."
"You speak madness," says another patron, older, thin-faced. "And you bleed through your sleeve."
You glance down. The dark stain has spread further. You're swaying slightly; you hadn't noticed.
"I told you," you say weakly. "The plane crashed. The wreckage must be somewhere in the forest. There were people, some died!"
"Metal that flies," the bearded man says again, softer now.
The barmaid steps out from behind the counter. Up close, her gaze is sharp as a blade. She reaches toward your shoulder but stops short of touching.
"That wound festers if left untended," she says. "Whatever tale you spin, you are hurt. And lost."
"I'm not spinning anything," you whisper, teary eyed. "I woke up in the woods. And now I'm here, and you're talking about dragons like it's normal."
The bearded man studies you, longer this time. "If you be some mummer's trick, you've chosen a strange hour for it," he says. "If you be mad, you are a convincing sort. And if you speak truth..." He trails off.
"If she speaks truth," the barmaid says quietly, "then the gods have cast her far from her home."
You swallow hard. "This isn't funny."
"No," the barmaid agrees. "It is not."
"Help me... please," you whisper, and this time there is no sharpness left in you, no insistence, no frustration — only something small and fraying at the edges.
The room tilts.
You don't notice it at first. Just a subtle sway beneath your feet, as though the floorboards have turned to the deck of a ship. The warmth of the tavern becomes suffocating. The smoke too thick. The faces around you blur at their edges, colors bleeding into one another.
Your fingers tighten around the edge of the bar. You feel the rough grain of the wood beneath your palm, grounding yourself in it, clinging to it as your knees threaten to give.
"I — I don't feel..." you begin, but the words dissolve on your tongue.
The barmaid steps forward quickly now, suspicion replaced with alarm.
"Gods," she mutters.
The throbbing in your shoulder surges, hot and insistent. Your ears ring again (louder this time) drowning out the murmurs rising in the tavern. Your vision tunnels, narrowing to a thin circle of flickering firelight and worried faces.
You try to steady your breathing. Try to stay upright.
But your body has endured too much—blood loss, hunger, fear, the long march through the forest. Survival carried you this far, and now it demands payment.
Your grip slips.
The world lurches violently to one side. Someone reaches for you (you think they do) but your knees buckle before you can tell. The bar rushes upward, or perhaps you fall downward; you cannot tell which.
Sound fractures.
A distant voice curses, another calls for water. Hands brush against your arms.
Then darkness closes in, thick and absolute.
And as consciousness slips through your fingers like water, one final thought drifts through you — slow, terrible, undeniable:
Maybe the plane didn't just fall... Maybe you fell somewhere else entirely.
When you wake, it is to the scent of lavender and smoke.
The ceiling above you is low and slanted, beams dark with age. Morning light spills through a small round window, pale and soft, catching dust in the air. Your body feels heavy, ached through, but cleaner. The wound at your shoulder is bandaged tightly in linen, the cloth stiff with herbs and salve.
You are lying in a narrow bed beneath roughspun blankets, not the tavern floor.
A chair scrapes softly beside you.
"You've woken, then."
It is the barmaid. In daylight she looks older than you first thought — lines at the corners of her mouth, silver threaded through her dark braid. Her gaze is steady, practical.
"My name is Clare," she says, as though that settles something. "You took a bad turn last eve. Near bled out on my floor, you did."
You swallow, throat dry. "You... helped me."
"Aye. I've seen worse than you stagger through that door." A faint huff of amusement touches her lips. "Though none dressed like some Lysene mummer with iron teeth sewn in her jerkin." She eyes the zipper of your jacket with suspicion.
You almost laugh, almost.
You don't ask how long you've been asleep. You don't ask how she carried you. You don't ask why this still feels real.
Clare pours water into a clay cup and presses it into your hands. "Best you drink slow."
You obey.
There is a pause before she speaks again, and when she does, her tone shifts — less wary now. More... resolved.
"You asked where you are."
Your fingers tighten around the cup. "Yes."
She folds her hands in her apron. "You are in Westeros."
The word means nothing to you. You wait for the punchline, it does not come.
"What is that?" you ask quietly.
She does not look at you as though you are mad this time. No narrowed eyes. No guarded distance.
"Westeros is the realm of the Seven Kingdoms," she says, patient as a mother instructing a child. "North and South alike. There is the North, vast and cold, ruled from Winterfell. The Vale of Arryn, ringed in mountains. The Riverlands, green and oft bloodied. The Westerlands, rich in gold. The Stormlands, fierce and sea-battered. Dorne, hot and proud in the south. And the Reach—" she gestures lightly toward the window " — where you now lie, beneath the rule of Highgarden."
You stare at her. "Westeros," you repeat faintly.
"Aye."
"And Ashford Meadow?"
"A village in the Reach. Not a grand one, but honest."
Your heart is hammering, but you force your face to remain composed. Do not unravel. Do not scream. She helped you, don't look mad.
She studies you for a moment before asking, "What is your name, child?"
You tell her.
She rolls the sound over her tongue once, twice.
"An uncommon name," she says at last. "I've heard stranger, mayhaps, in port towns and from passing traders — but not oft. It sits foreign on the ear."
"That's because I'm foreign," you murmur.
"So you are."
She hesitates. "Have you kin? A father? A mother?"
"Yes," you answer automatically — then the truth fractures under the weight of reality. They are not here. They cannot be here. If this is real, then they are --- " You swallow. "They're... dead," you finish instead. "Probably."
Clare's mouth tightens. "That is a hard thing to say so young."
You say nothing. She seems to read something in your silence but does not press. Stern, yes — but not unkind.
"Tell me more," you say carefully. "About... this place."
Clare shifts in her chair.
"The realm is ruled now by House Targaryen," she says. "Dragons were their sigil — and once, their strength. Silver hair and violet eyes, near unearthly in their beauty. The blood of old Valyria runs in them. Kings and queens upon the Iron Throne in King's Landing."
You feel cold despite the blankets.
"They had dragons?" you ask.
"Once," she says. "Great winged beasts of fire and shadow. Long gone now... though their name still carries flame enough."
Targaryen.
You manage a slow nod, as though absorbing simple geography instead of the collapse of everything you understood about reality.
Inside, you are spiraling. But you keep your face calm.
You cannot afford to look any more mad than you already sound. You sit propped against the pillows, hands folded tight in your lap so she does not see them tremble. The names still mean nothing to you — nothing solid, nothing real.
Clare seems to take your silence for confusion, not disbelief, and continues in the same patient tone.
"Each of the kingdoms's got its great house," she says, adjusting the blanket at your feet as though that, too, is part of the lesson. "That's how it's always been. Great lords over lesser lords, bannermen sworn and bound. In the North it's Stark — grim folk, so they say, but honorable. In the Westerlands, Lannister — rich as sin, with gold in their hills. The Vale's ruled by Arryn, high up in their mountains. Stormlands by Baratheon, fierce and loud. Dorne's Martell, sly and sun-kissed. The Riverlands... Tully. And here in the Reach, we bend the knee to House Tyrell of Highgarden."
She pauses, then adds, "Though above all of 'em sits the Iron Throne... the blood of the dragon."
You only look at her, even more confused.
"That's the Targaryens," she says, and there's a faint shift in her voice — half reverent, half wary. "They come from old Valyria, they did. Not like other folk. Hair pale as spun silver, eyes purple as a bruise at dusk. Pretty as paintings, most of 'em. Too pretty, some'd say. And proud with it."
She leans back slightly.
You stay very still.
"The king now is Daeron," she continues. "Daeron the Good, they call him. Peaceful sort, so the tales say. More book than blade—but wise, and kinder than most kings get to be."
Your pulse skips.
"He wed a Dornish princess," Clare says, nodding approvingly. "Brought Dorne into the realm proper, he did. Not by fire nor sword, but marriage. Folk grumbled at first—Dornish are... different—but peace is peace."
She leans back slightly.
"He's four sons, too. Four princes."
Your throat tightens.
"The eldest is Baelor." She smiles faintly. "Baelor Breakspear they name him. Not for breaking his own spear, mind — but for shattering others in tourney. Brave warrior that ended the Blackfyre rebellions... Strong as an ox and twice as steady. Darker than most Targaryens, on account o' his Dornish mother. Black hair, not silver. But noble through and through, they say. Honorable. The sort a smallfolk can look upon and feel safe."
You didnt know if you understood anything, but you just nod to let he know you're listening.
"The second's Prince Aerys," she goes on. "Bookish, some say. Close with his brother. Not so broad in the shoulders, but sharp in the mind."
She ticks another finger.
"Then there's Rhaegel. Quiet one. Keeps to himself. Some whisper he's... touched in the head, but court's full of whispers." She shrugs. "Hard to know truth from wine-talk."
"And the last?" you ask carefully.
"Maekar." Her expression shifts slightly. Firmer. "Maekar's iron. They call him the Anvil. Hard man. Hard face and judgments. A warrior through and through."
The room feels smaller the more she speaks.
"These princes — they ride, they train, they wed, and one day one o' them will sit the Iron Throne after their father," Clare says. "That's the way of it."
She studies you now.
"You truly never heard the name Targaryen?"
You force yourself to shake your head.
Clare studies you for a long moment, then snorts softly. "Then you're either lost beyond sense... or bonkers... or both."
A weak sound escapes you — something between a laugh and a sob. Your eyes burn, glossing over despite your effort to stay composed.
"It feels like I'm dreaming," you murmur. "Or trapped in a nightmare I can't wake from. Maybe I already died. Maybe that crash — " your throat tightens " — maybe that was it. And this is... something after."
Clare's brows draw together. She looks at you as one might look at a child claiming to see ghosts.
"Girl," she says firmly, pressing a rough but not unkind hand to your wrist, "this is as real as the floor beneath us. You're flesh and bone and stubborn breath. Dead folk don't bleed nor faint in my taproom."
She dips a cloth into a basin of water and lays it across your forehead. The coolness steadies you.
"Mayhaps the gods sent you," she adds, quieter now. "Stranger things have happened than a lost maid stumbling out o' the wood." She tilts her head. "What was it you said brought you? That thing what flies?"
You hesitate. For the first time, the thought solidifies in you—not just fear, not just shock. A theory. Alternate world? Different time?
Maybe you died in yours, maybe you crossed into this one. If so... this is the past.
"What year is it?" you ask instead of answering her.
She doesn't find the question strange. "Two-hundred and nine, after Conquest."
You almost choke. The number slams into you harder than any physical blow.
When she looks at you sharply, you force your expression to smooth out.
"Right," you manage faintly. "Of course."
You draw a slow breath. "It's called a plane," you begin again. "The thing that flies. It's... a craft. Made of metal. It carries many people at once through the sky."
Her eyes narrow slightly, but not in mockery this time — only confusion.
You stop yourself. "I'd rather you not repeat that to anyone," you say quickly. "Please. People already think I'm mad. I need... time... To uhm -- understand." Your fingers twist nervously together in your lap. "And I'm sorry," you add, shame creeping in. "I don't have any money. No coin. I must be nothing but a burden."
Clare makes a dismissive sound. "Nonsense."
She wrings out the cloth and sets it back upon your brow.
"The gods don't send burdens without cause," she says. "And the sept teaches we are to shelter the innocent, and protect women who've no shield of their own. You seem to be both."
She smiles then, a genuine one. You have no idea what a sept truly is, but you nod as though you do.
"You're welcome to stay," she continues. "As long as you've need. I've room enough. Been alone these years since my husband passed. My sons are wed and gone to their own fields, my daughter to her husband."
She gives you a sideways look. "Wouldn't mind the company... Nor the help. For a time." She winks.
Something tight in your chest loosens for the first time since the forest.
You are in 209 AC. In the Reach. Under the reign of King Daeron the Good.
And somehow... impossibly... alive.
Days pass.
You recover beneath Clare's roof.
It takes effort not to interfere. You are a neurosurgeon — years of study, of sterile rooms and surgical lights, of steady hands mapping the fragile architecture of the human brain. You know exactly what kind of trauma a blow behind the ear can cause. You know the risks of infection in a puncture wound. You know how crude linen and boiled wine are poor substitutes for antibiotics.
But you also know something far more dangerous: none of what you know exists here.
There are no cultures grown in labs, no imaging machines, no sterile theaters. Even the words would betray you. So you say nothing.
You let Clare work. She cleans the gash at your hairline with vinegar and something that smells sharply of rosemary. She packs the wound at your shoulder with poultices made of comfrey and garlic, muttering about "drawing out the rot." She binds it tight and scolds you when you try to move too much.
You grit your teeth and allow it.
And somehow... you heal. Not perfectly of course, not comfortably... but you heal.
Clare gives you clothing once you are steady on your feet — simple linen shifts, woolen kirtles, aprons sturdy enough for tavern work. Your old clothes she folds carefully and sets in a small wooden chest at the foot of your bed.
You hesitate one night, staring at them. Part of you thinks they are dangerous : proof of something unnatural. Something that could get you accused of witchcraft or worse. Burning them in the hearth would be safest. But you cannot.
They are the last thread tying you to your world.
You woke here with nothing else. No suitcase, no passport, no phone. Just those clothes. So you keep them, folded and hidden. Sacred in a way you cannot explain.
In return for shelter, you help.
You scrub tables, pour ale, carry trenchers of bread and stew. You learn how to move through the tavern without drawing too much notice, how to lower your voice into something less sharp, less modern. You practice speaking as they do, you swallow words that do not belong here.
And you listen, the tavern is a well of stories.
You learn of the Narrow Sea and the lands beyond it : the Free Cities of Braavos, Pentos, Lys, Myr. You hear of sellswords and merchant princes, of ships larger than anything Ashford has ever seen.
You learn of the Wall in the far North, though most speak of it as a distant curiosity rather than a living defense.
And always — always — the talk circles back to the royal family.
The cursed yet favored Targaryens.
Traveling hedge knights drink heavily and boast loudly. They speak of the king, Daeron the Good, as a scholar-king, gentle but shrewd. They speak of his sons with admiration, and sometimes mockery.
They speak often of the Blackfyre Rebellion.
You piece it together from fragments: Daemon Blackfyre, the king's half-brother, claiming the throne. Lords choosing sides. They speak Prince Baelor's name with particular reverence.
"Breakspear held the line at the Redgrass Field," one knight says, pounding his cup for emphasis. "Fought like the Warrior himself had taken his arm."
"And the young prince beside him," another adds. "Maekar — gods, that one fights like a hammer striking steel."
Maekar the Anvil.
You store every detail carefully.
Late one evening, after too much ale, a hedge knight leans toward you with wine-thick breath and grins. "Strange folk, dragons' blood," he says. "Keep it pure, they do."
"How?" you ask, feigning mild curiosity.
"Marry their own," he says. "Always have. Brother to sister, uncle to niece. Keeps the dragon strong."
You still. Cousins marrying cousins does not shock you; history in your own world was full of such unions among nobility. Politics above affection.
But brothers to sisters? Uncles to nieces? Something twists uneasily in your stomach.
"For the blood of the dragon," the knight repeats, as if that explains everything. "They ain't like us."
You nod slowly, hiding your reaction behind lowered lashes. You know too much about genetics to find comfort in that tradition.
The more you hear of the dragonlords, the more they take root in your thoughts.
It frightens you — how easily your mind conjures them now. Silver hair catching sunlight. Violet eyes assessing battlefields. Armor ringing beneath banners stitched with three-headed dragons.
You should be terrified. You are terrified.
But you are fascinated too.
"They've that way about them," Clare tells you one night as she plucks a chicken by the back door, feathers drifting like snow around her boots. "Targaryens. Folk fear 'em, aye—but they look twice all the same. Like staring at a flame. You know it can burn you, but still you draw close."
You say nothing, because she is right.
At night, when the tavern empties and the shutters are barred, when the last drunk has staggered home and the hearth burns low, the silence becomes unbearable. That is when your old life creeps in.
You think of your mother's voice, your father's tired jokes, your friends sending you messages you will never answer.
You picture the hospital operating room: bright, sterile, humming with focus. The years of study — undergraduate, medical school, residency, fellowship. More than a decade of sacrifice to become what you were. A neurosurgeon.
Here, you scrub ale from tables.
You turn your face into the thin pillow and let the tears come soundlessly, shoulders shaking beneath rough wool blankets. You do not want Clare to hear, you do not want her pity.
Some nights you wonder if God — your God, and not theirs — has punished you. For ambition, for pride, or neglecting faith until crisis demanded it.
Clare notices your restlessness. She begins taking you to the sept on certain mornings.
It is a modest building of pale stone, its walls limewashed and clean, the seven-pointed star carved above its wooden doors. Inside, the air smells of beeswax and incense. Light filters through colored glass in small round panes, painting the floor in muted blues and reds.
At the front stand seven carved figures:
The Father with his scales. The Mother with her outstretched arms. The Warrior armored and stern. The Maiden serene and young. The Smith strong at his forge. The Crone with her lantern raised. The Stranger, faceless and shadowed.
It unsettles you how familiar it feels. Not the shapes, but the structure, the reverence, the kneeling. It reminds you of Catholic churches : statues of saints instead of these aspects, candles lit for guidance, confession whispered in corners.
Clare shows you how to light a taper properly. How to bow your head. Which figure to pray to for protection, for guidance, for forgiveness.
"Sometimes," she says softly before the Mother's statue, "we don't need answers. Just strength enough to bear what's given."
You nod. You do not know which god — if any — has brought you here. But kneeling beside her steadies something inside you.
Late at night, when the tavern quiets, Clare talks more.
She tells you of her late husband : broad-shouldered, fond of dice, gone three winters now from a fever that took him quick. She tells you of her sons, married and settled in neighboring villages. Of her daughter, wed to a miller.
Her stories are ordinary. Human. And then she asks about you.
You tell her about your family in soft outlines. A father who worked too much, a mother who called too often. Siblings who teased. Friends who felt like siblings.
You do not tell her about surgical residencies or night shifts or conferences. You do not tell her that in your world women lead hospitals, argue in courtrooms, command armies of knowledge. You do not tell her that you studied more than twelve years to carve tumors from human brains.
It would sound like witchcraft, or arrogance. Or both.
So you let her believe you are simply a woman who lost her kin.
She (and others) ask often why you are not wed.
It happens at least twice a week. Patrons with ale-heavy breath, neighboring wives who peer too closely, even Clare herself once or twice.
"You're beautiful," one woman remarks while kneading dough beside you. "And not lame nor dim. Why's no man claimed you?"
Claimed.
The word stings.
You quickly learned that by their measure, you are... late. A woman of your age should have been married years ago, bearing children, running a household.
So you crafted a shield.
"My husband died," you say quietly whenever asked.
The word husband tastes strange on your tongue. It works. The questions stop at once, and faces soften. Some murmur condolences, others nod with that grim understanding of life's cruelty.
A widow is acceptable. An unmarried woman past her prime is suspicious. You hate the lie, but you cling to it.
It keeps them from pressing further.
And each night, as you lie in Clare's spare room, listening to the wind sweep across Ashford Meadow, you feel yourself splitting in two.
The woman you were : educated, modern, certain. And the woman you must become : quiet, cautious, shaped by a world that burns the different.
For a while, it is fine. Not good, not truly, but ... predictable. Yes, that was the word.
You wake before dawn because there is nothing else to do.
There are no alarms here, no glowing numbers on a bedside clock, no distant traffic humming beyond double-paned windows. Only the slow thinning of darkness and the cold that seeps through stone and wood alike.
Your body has learned the rhythm of this place. You rise when the air is still blue, when frost clings to the edges of the well and your breath ghosts in front of you. For a few fragile seconds each morning, suspended between sleep and waking, you forget where you are.
Then the ceiling comes into focus — low beams, smoke-stained and rough. And you remember. Oh, you remember.
You dress in layers of wool that scratch at your skin. You tie your hair back in a braid bun. You descend the narrow steps into the tavern's common room where embers glow faintly in the hearth like watchful eyes.
Clare is often already there, sleeves rolled to her elbows, flour dusting her forearms.
You knead dough beside her, your palms pressing into it rhythmically, folding and turning, building gluten without consciously thinking the word gluten. The repetition steadies your breathing. It quiets your thoughts.
Haul water, scrub tankards, sweep rushes from the floor. Wipe down tables sticky with spilled ale and old laughter.
Listen. You have become very good at listening.
Men speak freely around you now. You are furniture to them : useful, unthreatening, forgettable. They argue about crop yields and taxes and the price of grain. They whisper about lords and feasts and marriages.
You pretend not to care.
Days blur together until they are less like individual memories and more like one long stretch of endurance. Morning work, midday rush, evening exhaustion. Sleep heavy and dreamless — until it isn't.
Routine becomes a kind of mercy, routine leaves little room for panic. You almost begin to believe you could remain here. That you could build something small and steady in the shadow of someone else's story, a quiet life.
And that thought frightens you. You were not raised for invisibility.
You were raised on achievement charts and acceptance letters. On the belief that your mind was your greatest weapon. You spent more than twelve years carving your path — undergraduate degree, medical school, residency, fellowship. Nights without sleep, holidays missed, and relationships sacrificed.
You remember the first time you held a scalpel over an exposed brain. The weight and the terror of it. The precision required, the knowledge that a millimeter too far could steal someone's speech, their memory, their life.
You had power there, purpose even. Here, your hands smell of onions and yeast.
Some days you accept it with surprising calm. Other days it claws at you.
You step outside behind the tavern when it becomes too much. You brace your hands against the cold stone and breathe through the ache in your chest. You look up at a sky that feels familiar and foreign all at once.
And then the thought comes. Soft at first, tentative : What if this isn't real? What if the plane never truly crashed?
What if your body lies somewhere in a hospital bed (machines humming, nurses whispering) while your mind constructs this elaborate medieval hallucination to fill the void?
It would explain the impossibility of it all. The way history here feels both written and unwritten.
And if it is a dream — if it is a coma — then there is a way out.
The idea slithers in slowly, like something ashamed of itself.
If you died here... would you wake there? You imagine it in flashes. Cold river water filling your lungs — and then air, clean and filtered, flooding them instead. Darkness closing in, and then fluorescent lights burning your vision as your eyes snap open.
Your mother's voice breaking as she says your name. The fantasy is intoxicating in its cruelty. For a moment, you want to believe it. But then the rational part of you (the surgeon, the scientist) rises up.
What if you are wrong? What if this is not a dream but a displacement? What if whatever force tore you from your world placed you here entirely?
If you die in this body, what if you simply die?
No hospital, no second chance, no awakening.
Just nothing. Oblivion. You weigh it clinically sometimes, as if evaluating a risky procedure: probability unknown. Outcome irreversible.
You survived the crash — however impossible that survival looks now. You clawed your way through confusion and hunger and fear. You adapted and endured.
Would you truly throw all of that away on a theory born from desperation?
Another voice whispers cruelly: You're too afraid. And maybe you are. But another voice answers back: You fought too hard to live to surrender it so cheaply.
Even if living means kneading dough in a world that should not exist. Even if living means being small for now. So you choose the mundane. You choose to wake before dawn. You choose to haul water. You choose to survive.
And every morning you open your eyes beneath those smoke-darkened beams, you acknowledge the truth that frightens and steadies you all at once: If you were meant to die in that crash, you would have, but you are still here.
Which means, somehow, your story is not finished.
Until one afternoon, Clare sits across from you at the scrubbed wooden table, hands folded, eyes thoughtful in a way that makes your stomach tighten.
"I've been thinkin'," she says slowly. "I'm not as spry as I was. Winter's harder on the bones each year. My Ellyn's wrote again—her husband's done well for himself. Big house, servants and all that. She's asked me to come live with 'em proper."
The words hang in the air between you, you feel your expression change before you can stop it — your features twisting into something unguarded. Confusion first, then disbelief, then something far more fragile.
What does she mean, she's leaving?
Clare isn't just the woman who owns the tavern. She is the reason you did not lose your mind in the first week, she is routine and familiarity and the one steady voice in a world that still feels like it's made of shifting sand.
She is proof that kindness exists here.
Without her, the fragile structure you've built to keep yourself upright feels as though it might collapse. She has been your anchor, your interpreter, your quiet reassurance that you are not entirely alone in this strange place.
And now she speaks of leaving as if it is simple. As if it does not feel like the ground giving way beneath your feet.
She gives a small shrug. "I'll be closin' the tavern by harvest's end."
You hadn't realized how much of your fragile security rested on these walls.
She watches your face, then reaches across the table and pats your hand. "You can come with me, if you like. There'd be space. Ellyn's good-hearted. Or — " she hesitates, " — there's Lord Ashford."
You blink. "Lord Ashford?"
"Aye. The lord of these lands. His sons come drink here often enough. I know the family. Decent folk, for nobles." She snorts lightly. "If you go to the castle and tell him you're sent by me, with a letter in hand, he'll not turn you away. They'll always have need of another maid."
A maid.
From neurosurgeon to tavern girl to a fucking maid in a medieval castle.
Your pride stirs, then you crush it. Pride is useless here, pride does not feed you.
That night you lie awake long after the hearth goes cold. You weigh your options carefully. Go with Clare? Live out your days under another woman's roof, dependent again. Safe — but small.
Or go to the castle. Risk the unknown, place yourself closer to power, closer to the currents of this world that still feel like a story unfolding around you. Maybe you could find help, to go back where you came from?
By morning, you have decided.
"I'll go to the castle," you tell her quietly.
Clare's smile is soft, but there is sadness behind it. "Thought you might." She cups your cheek briefly, like a mother might. "I'd have liked you with me, truth be told. But you've never been one to settle where you don't mean to."
You wonder if she sees more than you think.
She presses a small pouch of coins into your palm. "For a proper gown. Can't have you showin' up lookin' like you've slept in my flour sacks."
Your throat tightens. "Clare, I — "
"Hush." She waves you off. "You've worked hard enough for your keep. Let an old woman feel generous."
The last morning comes too quickly.
You stand outside the tavern with a small bundle of your belongings — two dresses, your old clothes, a comb, the worn shoes you've grown used to, and Clare's folded letter sealed with wax.
The air smells of damp earth and distant hay.
You throw your arms around her, unable to hold back the tears now. "Thank you. For everything."
She stiffens for half a second (unused to such open affection) then pats your back awkwardly. "Oh, off with you. You'll make me weep, and I've no patience for that." Her voice wobbles despite her attempt at gruffness. "It's been a pleasure, girl. Truly."
You step back, wiping your face.
As you walk away down the road toward Ashford Castle rising pale against the hills, a realization settles heavily over you. You were lucky. So impossibly lucky.
You could have woken in a ditch, in the hands of cruel men, sold, accused of witchcraft. Left to starve.
Instead, you found Clare. A widow with flour and ale on her hands and kindness in her bones.
You glance back once more. She is still standing there, small against the tavern door, watching until you round the bend.
Then you face forward.
The castle looms closer with every step — stone walls high and unyielding, banners snapping in the wind.
Your heart pounds so hard you feel it in your throat, another life ending, another beginning waiting. And you walk toward it alone.
The road stretches ahead in a pale ribbon of packed earth, damp from the night's mist. Your bundle feels heavier than it should, though it carries little more than spare clothing and Clare's sealed letter. Each step takes you farther from the tavern — the only place in this world that has ever felt remotely safe.
You've never really ventured beyond it before.
Not properly.
You told yourself it was because there was too much work to be done. Because Clare needed you. Because the village was small enough and the world beyond it irrelevant.
But the truth is simpler... You were afraid.
Afraid of being asked questions you couldn't answer. Afraid someone sharper than a drunken farmer would notice the way you hesitate before speaking, the way you choose your words too carefully. Afraid of slipping — of referencing something impossible, of revealing how little you truly understand.
So you stayed small.
You stayed within the tavern's walls, where you knew the rhythm of the day and the measure of each man's temper. Where invisibility protected you.
The castle had always existed at the edge of your vision.
You'd seen it from afar : its pale stone towers rising above the trees, banners fluttering against the sky. A distant shape against the horizon, more storybook than real. You never let yourself think about it too deeply.
But now, as the structure grows larger with every step, it is no longer a distant silhouette. The battlements carved in clean lines, the guards posted at the gates, the gleam of sunlight against arrow slits and iron-bound doors.
It is real. Terrifyingly real. And you are walking straight toward it.
There is no tavern wall to hide behind now. No Clare to answer for you, no familiar faces to soften the edges of this world.
Just you, alone.
Your heart pounds — not only from fear, but from something else too. A reluctant awareness that this is movement. That you are no longer merely surviving inside borrowed safety. You are stepping into the wider world. Whatever it does to you next, it will not be because you stayed hidden.
The gates rise above you like something carved from judgment itself.
Two guards stand at attention, mail glinting softly in the afternoon light, spears grounded but ready. They look bored more than anything else, until they see you.
A lone woman, simply dressed... with no escort. Their eyes immediately narrow in polite suspicion.
You force your shoulders to stay relaxed. To look small, harmless. You lower your gaze just enough — not submissive, but respectful. You have learned the balance.
"I beg your pardon, ser," you begin carefully, smoothing your accent, sanding down the sharper edges of your speech. "I've come seekin' Lord Ashford." She says adds quickly. "If it please you."
One guard shifts his weight. "For what purpose?"
Your pulse flutters, this is where tone matters, word choice matters. Too bold and you are insolent... Too educated and you are strange.
"I've heard there be need of a maid in the castle," you say softly shielding the sun from your face with the back of your hand. "I was sent by Mistress Clare — the tavern keeper at Ashford Meadow. She bid me bring a letter to his lordship."
At the mention of Clare, something eases in the older guard's expression. Recognition, perhaps or familiarity.
"The widow who keeps the alehouse by the crossroads?" he asks.
"Aye, ser."
They exchange a glance.
You keep your hands folded loosely before you, heart hammering but face composed. You are acutely aware of every movement — how you stand, how you breathe, how long you hold eye contact. You cannot afford to appear odd.
After a moment, the older guard nods. "Wait here."
He disappears through the gates, leaving you alone beneath the weight of stone and sky. You resist the urge to fidget. This is nothing like walking into a hospital administrator's office. There, you belonged. Here, you are asking to be tolerated.
The guard returns sooner than you expect.
"You'll come," he says simply.
The gates open. The sound alone (iron and wood shifting) makes something inside you jolt. You step through into the castle yard.
It is larger than it ever seemed from afar. Stable boys hurry past leading horses, servants cross with baskets of linens. The smell of hay, smoke, and damp stone fills the air. The keep rises ahead, windows narrow and watchful.
You are led through corridors cooler than the outside air, torchlight flickering along the walls. Tapestries hang between stone columns — hunting scenes, battles, the Ashford sigil, a sun in orange back, worked in careful thread.
Your shoes echo faintly on the floor. You remind yourself to walk neither too quickly nor too slowly.
At last, the guard stops before a wooden door banded with iron. He knocks once, then pushes it open.
"The girl from the tavern, m'lord."
You step inside. The solar is warmer than the corridors, sunlight filtering through arched windows. Shelves lined with ledgers and scrolls. A heavy desk near the far wall.
Lord Ashford stands beside it.
He is older than you expected — hair threaded with gray, beard neatly kept. His tunic is finely made but not ostentatious. He looks like a man accustomed to command without needing to shout.
His gaze settles on you, assessing but not cruel. You drop into a small, practiced curtsey, like Clar told you to do if you see nobility.
"My lord," you say, careful, respectful. "I thank you for granting me audience."
He gestures faintly. "You're sent by Clare?"
"Yes, m'lord." You step forward just enough to offer the sealed letter with both hands. "She asked that I place this in your care."
He takes it, breaks the wax, and reads in silence.
You keep your eyes lowered, but not to the floor entirely — focused somewhere near the edge of his desk. Submissive enough, not suspicious. At last, he folds the letter.
"She speaks well of you," he says. "Says you've worked honest these past months. That you're steady."
Relief flickers through you, but you keep your expression modest. "I do my best, m'lord."
"And you seek a place in my household?"
"Yes, m'lord. As a maid, if it please you. I've experience keepin' house, tendin' tables, seein' to chores as needed." All true.
His eyes linger on you a moment longer. You fight the instinct to fill the silence. In this world, silence belongs to the powerful.
At last, he nods.
"There is always work to be done. You'll report to the housekeeper. She'll judge your usefulness better than I."
Your lungs loosen for the first time since you reached the gates.
"Thank you, my lord," you say, despite the tremor in your chest. "You'll not find me idle."
He studies you once more, as if committing your face to memory.
"We shall see," he replies evenly.
And just like that, another door opens in this strange, impossible life of yours.
The woman waiting for you in the hallway is nothing like Clare. She is older, posture rigid, shoulders squared, and the smell of old wood clings to her like a second skin. Her grey hair is pulled back in a tight knot, gray streaked with stubborn black. Her eyes assess you, and her yellowed teeth glint faintly when she murmurs a greeting.
"You must be the girl from the tavern," she says, each word precise. "Esthis, the housekeeper. Do not waste my time, girl. You are to learn quickly, or you will not last here."
You bow your head. "Yes, Mistress Esthis. I shall do my best."
"Your best will not suffice," she mutters, inspecting you as though you were a piece of furniture she was considering keeping or discarding. "But perhaps it will do until you prove otherwise."
She leads you through a series of corridors, the walls lined with tapestries and shields, the air smelling faintly of incense and wax polish. You keep your head down, careful not to stumble, careful not to breathe too loudly.
"You are to serve the youngest of Lady Ashford's charges," she continues. "Lady Gwyn. The boy-knights are rarely home; they are off gallivanting, showing themselves in tournaments and jousts. Your attention is to be entirely on the girl."
Lady Gwyn. You've heard the name before, from the village gossip, from overheard tales of minor nobility. Twelve years old, soon to be thirteen.
"She turns thirteen soon," Esthis adds, as though noting it for the record, "and you are now her maid. You will anticipate her needs. You will serve without complaint. Do not fail."
You nod again, swallowing the lump in your throat. "I understand."
She grunts, apparently satisfied, and guides you to a small chamber tucked beneath the eaves. The room is modest — bare walls of oak, a narrow bed with a rough woolen blanket, a small chest at the foot. There is a single window that lets in pale sunlight and a draft that chills your shoulders despite your layered clothing.
"This is where you will stay," Esthis says. She gestures to the chest. "Place your things there, and othing more. Keep it tidy, keep it neat. This is not your home, girl. Remember that."
You step inside and lay your bag upon the chest. The room feels impossibly small compared to the open space of Clare's tavern. But it is yours, for now.
Esthis leaves, the door clicking behind her with the kind of authority that leaves no room for argument. You exhale, leaning against the rough wall, feeling the first true weight of your new life settle on your shoulders.
Late at night, when the castle has quieted and the echoes of the day have faded into the thick stone walls, you find yourself in the small, shared quarters with the other maids. They sit cross-legged on worn floorboards, hushed whispers weaving between the shadows of the room. A candle flickers in the corner, throwing dancing light across their faces, and you instinctively smooth your hands over your lap, careful to remain composed.
The conversation drifts from spilled ink to errands and laundry, until, inevitably, it circles back to you.
"You look so young," one whispers, voice tinged with curiosity and something like envy. "So... beautiful. How comes a maiden such as you is not wed? Nor with child yet?"
The question hits with a peculiar weight. It is not asked with malice, but with the casual certainty of those for whom such questions are ordinary, unavoidable truths of life. In this world, it is taken as strange for a woman of your apparent age not to be promised, married, or expecting.
You feel the heat rise to your cheeks, the memory of your modern world pressed beneath the folds of this strange one. You were never expected to marry at twelve, thirteen, fifteen — not when ambition and knowledge drove you. And yet, here, in this stone chamber with flickering candlelight, it feels as if your very existence contradicts the order of things.
"I..." you begin carefully, forcing a calmness into your tone, steadying it against the strange ache that has lodged in your chest. "...My husband... he is dead."
A pause ripples through the room, like a soft wind through cobwebs. Their eyes widen slightly. It is enough to silence further questions, though curiosity lingers in the air. You let it.
"And... that is all I shall say of it," you continue, with the faintest tilt of your chin, enough to signal finality without arrogance. Your fingers play lightly in your lap, knotting and unknotting in the candlelight. "It is not for me to speak more."
It is strange (achingly strange) not to speak the way you once did.
In your old life, your words were quick, precise by education and habit. You debated colleagues., you issued instructions in operating rooms without lowering your eyes to anyone.
Here, a misplaced word can mark you as odd. Or worse : arrogant. Or worse still : dangerous.
So you trim your speech carefully. You soften consonants the way the peasants of the Reach do. You round your vowels. You replace perhaps with mayhap, yes with aye, I understand with as you say, my lady.
At first it feels like acting in a play that never ends. You stumble and overcorrect. You lie awake at night replaying conversations, wincing at phrases that may have sounded too polished, too foreign.
But you learn.
You listen the way you always have : absorbing cadence, rhythm, slang. You let it seep into you until it becomes second nature. Now when you speak, it no longer feels entirely borrowed.
Your life settles into routine again, and you are grateful for it.
You scrub floors until your hands crack and bleed in the colder months. You carry water up narrow staircases until your shoulders burn and tremble. You air linens, mend small tears, brush out tangles from silks more expensive than anything you once owned.
You learn to curtsy properly : deep enough to show respect, not so deep as to seem theatrical. You learn when to speak and when silence is safer. You say "My lady" and "My lord" with the right balance of humility and steadiness.
You lower your eyes when addressed.
It is stricter than the tavern ever was. Cleaner, and more controlled. There are no drunken men grabbing at sleeves here — but there are expectations heavier than ale-stained hands.
And then there is Lady Gwyn Ashford. Soon to be thirteen, and painfully aware of it.
She takes a liking to you faster than you expect.
Perhaps it is because you are not cowed by her in the way some of the younger maids are. Perhaps it is because, despite your careful speech, something in you still feels different. Or perhaps she simply senses kindness.
She reminds you, painfully, of girls you once knew. Of nervous patients before minor procedures. Of your friend's daughter who used to sit in hospital waiting rooms swinging her legs. Of nieces who asked too many questions and laughed too loudly.
Lady Gwyn is curious in a way that borders on restless. She is clever — though not always encouraged to be. Bored, often. She speaks constantly of marriage prospects, of what sort of knight or lord she might one day wed, of the duties of a lady, of how she must represent House Ashford well.
Sometimes you see the tension beneath it, the awareness that childhood is slipping from her like sand through fingers.
She asks questions when no one else is near. "What was it like, before you came here?"
"Do smallfolk truly wed for love?"
"Are boys in the villages handsome?"
You answer carefully, always carefully.
And sometimes (when the door is closed and no one important lingers) you let your old self slip through the cracks.
She once described a boy who strutted through the courtyard, boasting of future glory.
You smiled before you could stop yourself. "In my... village, we'd call that peacockin'. All feathers and noise."
She blinked at you. Then laughed—bright and delighted.
"You are strange," she declared. "But funny."
She says you are very pretty, too. That one unsettles you more.
Because here, beauty is not curated the way it was in your world. Peasant women work until sun and wind harden their skin. They do not have the time (or luxury) for careful grooming. In your old life, appearance was maintenance. Skincare, haircare, fitness. It was expected, almost clinical in its routine.
Here, it stands out.
You keep clean because you must. You tie your hair neatly because it is habit. You hold yourself straight because years of professional posture never left you.
And she notices.
"You do not look like the other maids," she once said bluntly, studying you. "You look... finer."
You laughed it off. "Hard work will mend that soon enough, my lady."
But you see it in her eyes : curiosity. Surprise that someone who claims to be smallfolk carries herself differently. And then, inevitably, she asks the question that seems to haunt this world.
"Why are you not wed?"
It is not accusation, it is confusion. You smooth her hair as you've done a hundred times before, fingers gentle as you braid it for the evening.
"My husband died," you say softly, the words practiced and steady.
She goes still. "Oh."
And then her face shifts (not to gossip, not to suspicion) but to genuine sorrow. "I am sorry," she says earnestly. "Truly."
And you believe her.
Lady Gwyn is a truly lovely girl, not yet hardened by politics, not yet burdened by expectation.
You dip your head slightly. "It was some years past, my lady. I have made my peace."
It is easier now to tell the lie. It rolls from your tongue with less resistance. Because in a way, you have lost something. An entire life, a future, people who will never know what became of you.
She leans into your touch as you finish her braid.
"I hope," she says thoughtfully, "that I wed a good man. Not one who boasts like a peacock."
You smile despite yourself.
"I hope so too, my lady."
She smiles at you then, the kind of smile that belongs to a girl and not yet a lady trained for court. Through the mirror, her eyes meet yours.
"I really like your necklace."
Instinctively, your fingers rise to your collarbone, brushing the thin chain. You rarely think of it during the day (it has become part of you) but now it feels suddenly heavy.
It is small. A delicate golden heart, no larger than the pad of your thumb, engraved with your initials. The chain is fine, almost fragile. In your old world it would have been ordinary.
Here, it feels dangerously precious.
You had removed your watch the first week — its glass face, its ticking hands, its impossible design too strange for this place. You keep it wrapped in cloth at the bottom of your chest.
But the necklace... you could not part with it. It was your mother's gift. A graduation present. "So you'll always carry home with you," she had said, fastening it at your neck.
You swallow gently. "Thank you, my lady. My mother gifted it to me."
Gwyn nods, studying it with approval. She does not ask more. For that, you are grateful.
You notice the books at first only because your eyes are starved for printed words. Leather spines line the shelves of her chamber. Some cracked with age, others newer, their bindings still stiff. Titles stamped in gold leaf. Pages edged in faint red or blue.
You try not to stare.
One afternoon, while braiding her hair, you let yourself glance too long at a stack near the window.
"You look at them as if they might speak," she observes.
You nearly flinch.
"I only think they're handsome things," you reply, cautious.
She tilts her head. "Can you read?"
The question lands heavier than it should. Most smallfolk cannot.
You measure your answer like you once measured incision depth. "Aye, my lady. I was fortunate. A nobleman once passed through our village. Taught a few of us letters in the evenings."
It sounds plausible.
Her brows lift slightly — not in suspicion, but mild surprise. "That is rare."
"I know," you say, lowering your eyes just enough.
There is a pause. Then, gently: "You may borrow one, if you like. I have more than I care to finish. It is expected I read them, but I confess I do not always enjoy it."
You bow your head, hiding the rush of relief and hunger. "You are most kind, my lady."
Kind does not begin to cover it. You devour them. You read in your small chamber by candlelight until wax pools dangerously close to the holder. You read in stolen moments between duties. You read as if the pages themselves might reveal a map home.
At first it is simple histories.
Dragons long dead : Balerion the Black Dread, whose shadow once swallowed cities. Vhagar. Meraxes. Names that feel mythic and yet are recorded with dates and witnesses.
You read of Aegon's Conquest : of fire made flesh, of Harrenhal melting like wax, of kingdoms bending or burning.
You read of the Dance of the Dragons, civil war tearing a dynasty apart. Brother against sister. Dragon against dragon. Skies black with ash.
Then the Blackfyre Rebellion : bastards claiming crowns, legitimacy questioned, blood spilled over lineage and pride.
And always, threading through it, the Targaryens.
Daeron II Targaryen : called the Good. The king who did not conquer Dorne with flame, but bound it through marriage. A political union that reshaped the realm more effectively than war. So it is true.
The drunken man in the tavern had not exaggerated.
You are living in the reign of a king whose name you now trace with your fingertip across parchment. You turn pages faster.
His sons, that you know with you many stores you've read already.
Baelor Targaryen. Breakspear. Widower. Warrior. Diplomat. The text praises his honor, his measured temperament, his ability to bridge divides between regions long hostile to one another.
You pause over his description longer than necessary. The other sons too, but not much is known in text, more in rumors.
Maekar Targaryen, stern, rigid, unyielding. Also widower with many children.
"His children are said to be fierce," Gwyn murmurs one afternoon as you fasten the small pearl buttons at her sleeves, her voice lowered as though the stone walls themselves might carry tales. "But they have a poor reputation as well. Mother says the eldest is oft in his cups, and the second... cruel."
She hesitates, then adds with a small shrug, "I heard he has sent one of them to the Citadel to forge a chain and become a maester. I know little of the others, though. Only whispers."
That is not written in the book. But it feels true.
You read of the coin the gods are said to flip at a Targaryen's birth, madness or greatness. As if divinity itself cannot decide what it has created. You read of the Wall in the far North, ancient and impossibly vast. Of creatures scholars dismiss with careful language, but never entirely deny.
White walkers. Giants. Things that do not fit within your old understanding of biology.
You close the book slowly. It was absurd, all of it.
The announcement comes like a thunderclap: the royal family will attend Gwyn's name day.
Even Lord Ashford looks stunned.
You overhear Lady Ashford murmuring to her companions that the Targaryens no longer soar as they once did, not without dragons. That Prince Baelor seeks closeness with lesser houses, to strengthen loyalty.
"They must remind the realm they are still flame," she says.
You polish the silver until your fingers ache and the metal gleams like still water. You work the cloth in small, patient circles, watching your distorted reflection waver in the curve of a goblet. For a moment, you barely recognize yourself — your face stretched thin by the bowl of the cup, eyes darker than you remember, older somehow.
You were not in the courtyard when Lord Ashford rode out to greet them, but you heard the trumpets. You did not see the formal bows, nor Lady Gwyn's carefully practiced curtsey, nor the way the household must have gathered in subtle clusters to witness dragon-blood stepping through their gates.
You only hear about it afterward in fragments from the stable boys.
Now you stand inside the solar, tray balanced carefully in your hands, breath measured and posture exact. The room has been prepared meticulously — rushes refreshed, fire stoked, wine decanted.
Brinna stands beside you, barely fifteen, gentle as pressed linen and twice as obedient. She clutches her own tray with white-knuckled fingers.
Then the door opens.
You feel it before you see them — the subtle shift in the air, the awareness that something important has entered the room.
Prince Baelor steps inside first.
He is broad-shouldered, yes, but not in the brutish way of men who rely solely on strength. There is composure in him. Control. The sunlight that follows through the open door catches in his dark hair — Dornish blood unmistakable in the tone of his olive skin, in the shape of his features. Truly handsome.
Behind him comes Prince Maekar.
If Baelor is tempered steel, Maekar is iron left in the forge too long — hard and severe. His jaw is set tight, his gaze sharp and restless. There is no warmth in the way he surveys the room. If anything, there is impatience.
You sense immediately that he finds this tourney tiresome. Beneath him. A duty to endure rather than enjoy.
They cross the threshold with Lord Ashford speaking between them, voice diplomatic, eager but measured.
Baelor came in front of you... and oh, he was handsome — truly, unfairly handsome.
Not in the fragile, ethereal way of the silver-haired princes sung about in taverns, but in something steadier. Baelor Targaryen entered the solar like a man accustomed to being watched and yet uninterested in the watching. Broad-shouldered, dark-haired, sun-browned by Dornish blood rather than pale Valyrian frost. Strength without ostentation, authority without noise.
His brother was the opposite in coloring if not in bearing. Hair white as bleached bone, eyes pale and sharp — the first time you saw a man like that, in your old world, you would have assumed albinism. Here, it marked him clearly: Targaryen. Or Lyseni. But no one mistook him. This was Prince Maekar : rigid, hawk-faced, coiled with restrained impatience.
And yet it was Baelor you looked at.
You were not present at the gates when Lord Ashford welcomed them. You did not see the formal bows, nor hear the words exchanged in the courtyard. But you heard later that the prince had greeted his host warmly — no arrogance, no lazy disdain. The rumors were true, then. Both that he was honorable... and that he was striking.
You met them inside, when they were shown into the solar.
Brinna, sweet and obedient Brinna, barely fifteen and already trained into quiet invisibility, carried one wine bocal. You slipped smoothly beside her and relieved her of it before she could protest. She blinked at you but said nothing. You were older; you moved with more certainty. Or perhaps more habit.
And then they entered.
Baelor first, accompanied by Lord Ashford, who spoke in a tone of careful optimism. Behind him came Maekar, tension drawn across his shoulders like a bowstring.
Maekar's eyes moved unkindly around the chamber.
He muttered curses under his breath — not the performative kind meant to shock, but the habitual sort of a man already displeased before the day has begun.
You would have snorted once, in another life. The reflex rose in your throat before you strangled it. You were not that woman here, you were a maid.
You stepped forward. Baelor's eyes found you immediately. Not in hunger like most men, or in dismissal. Simply — awareness.
You lowered yours at once and moved to help him remove his cloak, fingers careful, deferential. And then the trembling began.
This was no minor lord. This was the heir to the Iron Throne. Descendant of dragonriders. A man whose ancestors had conquered kingdoms with flame.
You had heard of him in taverns — in gossip thick with ale and envy. Breakspear. The warrior who split shields. The widower prince. The good one.
And now he stood before you, smelling of leather, steel oil, and something clean... early rain, perhaps, caught in wool.
"Spring rains have swollen many of our streams," Lord Ashford was saying gently. "Perhaps the young princess has merely been delayed."
"Fuck me," Maekar muttered flatly. "Delayed," he repeated with disdain. "They are not delayed."
Your hands faltered at one stubborn clasp near Baelor's shoulder. You dared, foolishly, to glance up. He was not looking at you, but at his brother.
Faster, you tell yourself.
"Do not curse our gracious host," Baelor said quietly.
His voice was low, and you felt it more than heard it — a faint vibration beneath your fingers where the cloak still rested against his chest.
The clasp refused you.
Your fingers fumbled. Shit, shit, shit.
His gaze shifted.
For one terrifying second you thought he would rebuke you — a mean correction, a prince's impatience. Instead, something else crossed his face. Amusement? Understanding?
He covered your hands with his. And oh... They were so calloused in a way no court-bred dandy would ever be. The hands of a man who had actually wielded a weapon rather than merely posed with one.
"I have it," he murmured, not unkindly.
You withdrew at once, stepping back as though burned, eyes dropping to the floor. He unfastened the clasp himself and lifted the cloak from his shoulders in one smooth motion, handing it to you rather than letting it fall.
"Thank you," he said.
To you. Not past you. Not through you. To you.
This should have been ordinary — once, in another life, it would not have unsettled you at all. But here, in a world where rank carved distance between souls and nobles rarely wasted gentleness on those beneath them, kindness felt almost unnatural. So rare, so unexpected, that you found yourself stunned by it.
Behind him, Maekar tore off his own cloak and let it fall carelessly to the floor.
"I said fuck me, not fuck him," he grumbled, pacing toward the window. "It is not his fault Father bade us attend this miserable circus."
Lord Ashford's smile tightened. Just barely.
You saw it, and you felt a strange flicker of protectiveness toward him. He was kind. You knew that much. He did not deserve open contempt in his own hall.
Baelor sensed it too.
"Might we discuss this another time?" he suggested, already taking a seat with deliberate calm — not commanding, not pleading, simply redirecting.
The conversation shifted, politics, appearances. The expected arrival of other nobles.
You did not hear most of it, no, you were too busy memorizing him.
Oh, damn it — why did you have to feel this sudden, traitorous heat when he was the very portrait of the realm itself? The embodiment of honor, of duty, of everything sung about in halls and whispered about in awe. It was absurd, mortifyingly predictable. A foolish, girlish cliché you would have mocked in anyone else.
And yet, you couldn't help it.
The way he leaned back but never slouched, eating his grapes. The way his attention sharpened when someone spoke. The way Maekar's agitation seemed to orbit him rather than disturb him.
And then the interruption came.
A large, awkward young knight (broad as an ox and twice as uncertain) was discovered hovering too near the doorway, clearly listening. He looked as though he regretted being born.
Ser Duncan the Tall.
He stammered something about entering the lists. About having once served a certain Ser Arlan of Pennytree. About a joust sixteen years prior.
To your astonishment, Baelor remembered.
You poured more wine as they spoke, careful not to spill a drop. Maekar rolled his eyes openly when Duncan praised Baelor's skill. But Baelor waved it away with almost embarrassed humility.
"No harm done," he told the knight. "You may enter the lists."
The gamemaster shifted uneasily, and Baelor reminded the young man he would require a sigil if he were to compete — he was not Ser Arlan's son.
You felt something twist unexpectedly in your chest. Like you, he had no banner to claim. No father to stand behind. No clear place in this world that insisted upon lineage as proof of worth.
He bowed awkwardly, nearly tripping over himself as he withdrew.
When the door closed behind him, the room felt different somehow.
You linger at the edge of the solar while the princes, the maester of the games and Lord Ashford continue their discussion of the morrow's lists — which banners will ride, which rivalries must be carefully managed, which slight from ten years past might reignite beneath the guise of sport. It is a dance of pride disguised as chivalry.
You move when needed. Refill wine, replace a cup, answer when spoken to.
"Yes, my lord." "At once, Your Grace."
Invisible, efficient, and forgettable. Yet you feel his presence in the room like a second hearth-fire.
It is well past midnight when you see him again.
Lady Gwyn had fussed longer than usual before sleep, restless with anticipation of the tourney, whispering about which knight might crown her Queen of Love and Beauty. You stayed until her breathing softened and evened, until her fingers loosened their hold on your hand.
Only then do you retreat to your small chamber.
You hesitate before putting on the dark cloak. This is foolish, you tell yourself. But the air in the castle feels too thick tonight. You need distance from polished floors and noble tempers.
The lists are quiet now, the great pavilions stand like sleeping beasts beneath the moon. You only want to walk between them. To feel something that is yours.
You step into the corridor, fastening the clasp at your throat — and walk straight into someone.
You hit something solid, and a hand grips your upper arm to steady you before you can lose balance.
"Shit — oh my God—" you breathe automatically, the old words slipping out before you can catch them.
The hand stills, and you look up.
Prince Baelor. Your heart slams so violently you're certain he must feel it through your sleeve.
You drop at once into a curtsy, mortification flushing your skin. "Forgive me, Your Grace. I did not see — I wasn't looking — "
"It is quite all right," he says, and there is no irritation in it.
He releases your arm, though his touch lingers in your awareness. His cloak is gone now; he wears only a simple dark doublet, unlaced slightly at the throat. Less princely. More man.
"And where are you going," he asks, tilting his head slightly, looking at your cloak, "at such an hour?"
The question is gentle, not accusatory. Still, you feel suddenly aware of how improper this might appear — a servant wandering alone at night.
"I wished for some air, my prince," you answer carefully. "The halls grow close after a long day."
His gaze rests on you longer than it should.
"The grounds are not entirely empty," he says. "Knights drink deeply after a day in the lists."
"I can take care of myself," you reply before you can stop yourself. Shit. Too bold. You lower your eyes quickly. "Forgive me. I only meant — I will be cautious."
A faint smile touches his mouth — not mocking. "I do not doubt you can," he says. "But caution is no insult to strength."
Silence stretches between you, you don't know what to say.
He seems kind — more than kind. A man who listens before he speaks and does not wield his rank like a cudgel. There is nothing cruel in him, nothing careless. And that, somehow, makes this worse. Because you are not merely speaking to a courteous knight.
You are speaking to the heir to the Iron Throne.
To the son of a king, to the grandson of dragonriders. To a man whose blood has ruled the Seven Kingdoms since Aegon's Conquest... In your other life, men like him existed only in books and on screens, safe behind glass and fiction.
And yet here he stands in the flickering torchlight, close enough that you can see the faint scar near his jaw, close enough to hear the cadence of his breathing. It should terrify you... and it does, a little.
"You are not from these lands," he observes suddenly.
Your breath catches.
"My prince?"
"Your speech," he clarifies. "It is careful. As though chosen."
Your thoughts scatter at once. Holy shit. You cannot afford to be examined too closely. Not by anyone — and certainly not by him. Another realization follows swiftly on the first: he is not merely honorable, nor simply kind. He is observant, attentive in ways that unsettle. The sort of man who notices small fractures in a polished surface.
That is certainly a danger to you.
You are meant to be forgettable, another quiet maid in a borrowed apron. A bowed head, a pair of hands that pour wine and vanish. You have worked diligently to smooth away the sharper edges of your old yourself — the cadence of another world, the posture of someone accustomed to being seen.
And yet here you stand, caught beneath the gaze of a prince who has already noticed too much.
"I was fortunate, growing up," you say evenly. "A nobleman once allowed me access to letters. I learned to speak properly in service."
"Fortunate indeed," he murmurs. "Few are granted such opportunity."
He studies you again — and this time it feels as though he is not looking at a maid, but at a person trying very hard to remain small.
"And yet," he continues quietly, "you do not seem small."
The words strike deeper than they should.
You swallow. "It is not my place to seem otherwise."
"For what it is worth," he says after a moment, "place and worth are not always the same thing."
You dare to meet his mismatched eyes then.
They are warmer up close than you expected. Purple and blue, flecked with gold in the torchlight.
"Thank you, Your Grace," you say softly.
He inclines his head, as though you have offered him something equal in return.
"If you must walk," he says, stepping slightly aside to allow you passage, "remain near the larger pavilions. The guards patrol there."
"I will."
You hesitate. "And if you require anything — "
He shakes his head gently. "No. But I thank you."
Another pause, the corridor feels narrower now.
"You said 'God,'" he adds suddenly.
Your stomach drops. Fuck.
"My prince?"
"When you stumbled," he says mildly. "You did not say 'gods.'"
Your thoughts tangle over themselves, searching desperately for something plausible.
"I -- I was startled," you manage at last. "An old habit."
A soft, nervous laugh slips from you, an attempt to thin whatever tension has gathered between you. It sounds too light in the narrow corridor, too fragile.
Your hands have begun trembling again — traitorous things. You hide them in the folds of your gown, fingers curling into the fabric as if you might anchor yourself there.
He watches you for a heartbeat longer. Then, unexpectedly, he lets it go. "As you say."
Relief floods you so suddenly your knees almost weaken. You incline your head, meaning to take your leave at last.
The corridor is dim, lit only by guttering torches that paint the stone in restless gold. Your slippers make scarcely a sound upon the rush-strewn floor. You have almost reached the turn when his voice rangs again.
"What is your name again?" the prince asks.
Again? As if the loss of it pricks him.
Your pulse stumbles, names are dangerous things. In this world they carry lineage, allegiance, memory. You have forged yours carefully, stitched it into the fabric of your lie until it sits comfortably on your shoulders. Even so, for a moment you consider giving him another.
But he is waiting.
His thumb rests lightly against your sleeve, warm through the wool. His gaze is searching your face in the half-light.
You hesitate for only a heartbeat. It is enough for him to notice.
A faint line appears between his brows — not anger, not suspicion, but thought. As though he senses there is more beneath your silence than shyness.
"My name, Your Grace?" you echo softly, buying time you do not possess.
"Yes," he says. "I would not forget it twice."
There is no command in the words, so you give it to him. The sound of it feels strange in your own mouth tonight.
He repeats it, lower, tasting the syllables. Not mockery. Not correction. Memory. He nods once, committing it somewhere behind those steady brown eyes.
"It suits you," he says, almost absently.
You don't know what that means. He releases your arm then, though slowly, as if reluctant to surrender the contact.
"Good night," he says at last.
The corridor seems smaller somehow.
"Good night, Your Grace."
You curtsy again, deeper this time. When you rise, his gaze has not left you. You step past him, acutely aware of his proximity — the warmth, the faint scent of leather and steel that clings to him.
You walk steadily until you turn the corner. Only then do you press your hand to your chest.
Oh, this is dangerous.
You were present in the solar when Aerion made his declaration.
The chamber felt smaller that day, though the great carved beams and high windows had not shifted an inch. Lord Ashford sat at the head of the heavy wooden table carved with his house's sunburst crest. Beside him, stern and watchful, was his liege lord from the house of Tyrell. The king's sons occupied the opposite side — Prince Baelor composed, Prince Maekar tight-jawed.
Ser Duncan the Tall stood before them, flanked by royal guards, looking as though he had wandered into a tale far larger than himself. When the knight requested trial by combat, Aerion refused. He sat half-sprawled in his chair, a dagger in hand, cracking nuts against the tabletop with idle flicks of the blade. Shells scattered like splinters around his plate. His pale hair caught the light; his eyes did not.
"A trial of seven," he announced, as if suggesting a change in weather.
It was excess, spectacle even! It was cruelty wrapped in ceremony.
You felt the shift in the room — the tightening of jaws, the quick exchange of glances. A trial of seven meant blood would not be contained to two men. It would draw others in. Escalate pride into ruin. You moved quietly around the table, pouring wine into cups that did not need refilling. Your hands were steady by habit now. Your face carefully blank.
But inside, something twisted.
You pitied Ser Duncan. You had already pitied him long before this moment.
You had taken him food in the dungeons when no one was looking — crusts of bread, a heel of cheese, whatever you could slip past the guards under the pretense of cleaning. You should not have done it. It was not your place, but he had looked so bewildered in his chains, so alone.
And you had been there the day Aerion snapped the puppeteer girl's fingers.
The memory still made your stomach turn.
The girl had been part of a troupe traveling through the grounds, performing an old tale with painted wooden figures. You did not understand at first what had angered the prince so deeply. The maids whispered that the puppets had mocked the three-headed dragon, that the story made light of Targaryen power. That was why he had seized the girl's hand and bent her fingers back until they broke.
But in the kitchens, the cook had cut those whispers short.
"Fool talk," he had said slamming a cleaver into bone. "That tale is older than the dragons in this land. Older than their crowns. The prince needed no insult to do what he did. Some men are just born cruel."
Mad, others murmured later.
You did not know if it was madness, you only knew the sound the girl made.
And now here he was again, cracking nuts with his dagger, demanding seven men bleed for his pride, while Ser Duncan stood alone beneath banners that did not belong to him.
You poured more wine, and wondered how many more bones would break before this tourney was done.
When Ser Duncan was taken below (beneath the stone belly of Ashford Castle where the air turns damp and smells of iron and old straw) you told yourself it was none of your affair.
You lasted less than an hour.
Bread and cheese are easy enough to pocket if one knows when the kitchens are busiest. A heel gone missing raises fewer questions than a loaf. Water, easier still. You wrapped both in cloth and made your way down the narrow steps, heart hammering with every echo of your own footfall.
He could not have been more than nineteen, you thought when you saw him properly in the torchlight. Broad as an ox, yes. Calloused hands, yes... but young. Startlingly young when stripped of armor and pride.
He looked up when you approached the bars, confusion first — then recognition.
"You," he said, too loudly.
"Quiet," you hissed at once, glancing over your shoulder. "Do you want us both dead?"
That silenced him.
You passed the bread through the gap and the cup of water after. His fingers brushed yours, rough and shaking.
"You shouldn't — " he began.
"I know."
It was dangerous. Perhaps even treasonous, depending on how one wished to frame it. You had seen men hanged for less — for theft, for insolence, for merely being inconvenient to someone with power. A maid consorting with a prisoner accused of striking a prince? That rope would not hesitate.
Still, you could not unsee the puppeteer girl's broken fingers. You could not forget the sound.
"This does not leave this cell," you told him firmly. "You do not speak of me. If anyone asks, you found it on the floor. Understood?"
He nodded quickly. "I won't tell. I swear it."
He thanked you more times than necessary. You cut him off each time.
"Eat," you said. "You'll need your strength."
You did not stay long, could not afford to.
And so that night, they brought him back to the solar.
You stood once more with the wine pitcher in hand as the great men of the realm resumed their seats.
Prince Aerion Targaryen lounged in his chair as though none of this concerned him. His lip was still split where Duncan had struck him; dried blood traced the edge of his mouth.
He cracked nuts against the table again with the flat of his dagger. Again. Again.
The sharp report echoed in the chamber. If it pained him, he did not show it. If anything, the blood only sharpened his delight.
Prince Maekar looked as though he wished the stone floor would open and swallow him whole. Lord Ashford and Lord Tyrell shared a glance — discomfort poorly disguised as diplomacy.
Prince Baelor, meanwhile, might have been carved from marble, but you saw it.
The tightening at his jaw when you poured his wine. The faint flex of muscle beneath stillness. He did not speak out of turn, did not even interrupt.
When Aerion refused single combat and declared he would have a trial of seven, the air itself seemed to recoil, even Prince Baelor and Maekar stiffened, well Maekar was more confusing having never heard of a trial of seven.
Baelor was the one who explained the custom : seven champions for the accused. Seven for the accuser. Judgment decided by blood and survival.
As he spoke, you watched Ser Duncan's face, you watched the light leave it.
Six other knights? He was a hedge knight — no house, no banner of note, no father's name to rally behind him. Large and awkward and earnest, a man who could barely afford decent armor. And now he was expected to find six others willing to stake their lives on his cause.
It was absurd! Cruel, even.
Your knuckles whitened around the neck of the wine pitcher before you realized how tightly you were gripping it, you couldn't help it.
The doctor in you (the part that once swore oaths about preserving life) recoiled at the spectacle of it. But even beyond that, simply the human in you balked. You caught Duncan's eye for a fleeting second.
He looked as though the ground had vanished beneath him.
Prince Maekar seized his son by the arm and all but dragged him from the chamber, annoyance radiating from him like heat from forge iron.
When the door shut behind them, the room felt drained.
Ser Duncan asked to be dismissed so he might seek his champions, voice lacking conviction. Already he sounded defeated.
Prince Baelor did not even look at him fully — only gave a curt tilt of the head.
Dismissed.
And just like that, the fate of a nineteen-year-old hedge knight was set loose into the night, expected to gather six men willing to bleed for him.
Soon enough, Lord Ashford withdrew with stiff courtesy, and Lord Tyrell followed, murmuring something about the hour and the morrow's arrangements. Their footsteps faded down the corridor, their voices swallowed by stone.
The fire had burned low, embers pulsing red and gold beneath settling ash. Shadows stretched long across the carved table bearing Ashford's crest. The air smelled faintly of smoke and spilled wine.
Prince Baelor did not leave.
He remained seated for a time, then rose and turned toward the hearth, hands clasped loosely behind his back. His posture was straight, but no longer ceremonial. Thoughtful now, almost burdened.
You were still there... Not dismissed.
The wine pitcher rested in your hands, heavier than it should have been. You did not dare set it down without instruction. Etiquette was clear: a servant speaks only when addressed. A servant does not intrude upon noble contemplation.
So you lowered your gaze and waited.
It startled you when he spoke.
"Were you present," he asked without turning, "during the... incident?"
You blinked, uncertain.
"My prince?"
He shifted slightly, glancing at you over his shoulder. The firelight traced the line of his cheek, softened the severity of his profile.
"You walk the grounds at night," he said evenly. "You said so. I thought perhaps you might have seen what occurred."
Understanding dawned slowly.
"Yes," you answered carefully. "I was there."
Silence lingered a moment.
"And," he continued, now facing you fully, "do you believe it just?"
The question struck you harder than any reprimand might have. You hesitated.
"May I speak freely, Your Grace?" you asked, pulse quickening.
A faint flicker of something (amusement, perhaps) touched his mouth. "You are already doing so."
You swallowed.
"I think it unjust," you said at last. "Your nephew was... out of line." You chose the phrase carefully, but the truth pressed harder behind it.
"It was cruelty," you added, more firmly than intended.
His jaw tightened.
"He was struck," Baelor replied. "Ser Duncan laid hands upon a grandson of the king."
"And breaking a girl's fingers shows strength?" you answered before caution could catch you.
The words came sharper than they should have. Too quick and honest.
You realized only then that your speech had shifted — less careful, less polished. Something of your other self slipping through.
You steadied your tone. "If I may, my prince... if such acts are meant to remind smallfolk of royal authority, they do not succeed."
His brows lifted slightly.
"How so?"
You set the wine pitcher down on the table, your hands suddenly free, folding them behind your back to still their trembling.
"I am smallfolk," you said plainly. "People talk. In kitchens, in stables, in the yards." You met his eyes now. "They have not spoken kindly of House Targaryen since that day."
He exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face — a gesture so weary, so human, it startled you. For a moment he did not look like the heir to a throne forged in dragonfire. He looked like a man carrying the weight of other men's sins.
The firelight caught in his eyes — one warm blue, the other purple, almost amber in certain angles. They fixed on you with unsettling intensity.
"You presume much," he said quietly.
"I report what I hear," you replied. "Fear is not loyalty... and well, cruelty does not inspire devotion. It inspires resentment."
He did not rebuke you.Instead, he looked... tired.
"I know," he admitted at last, voice low. "What my nephew did was not noble." A pause. "But I cannot publicly condemn him. He is my blood."
There it was. The line drawn not by morality, but by lineage.
He turned slightly away again, staring into the fire.
"I am a son of the dragon," he continued. "And dragons do not devour their own before the realm."
The statement was not prideful. It was resigned.
You felt something twist in your chest.
"And what of the realm?" you asked softly.
He did not answer immediately.
The embers shifted, a log collapsed inward with a quiet hiss.
When he looked back at you, there was something rawer in his expression now — something less princely.
"The realm," he said, "is rarely as simple as right and wrong."
You did not answer.
The fire shifted between you, collapsing inward with a soft sigh of sparks. You thought the conversation had ended there — that he would dismiss you, retreat back behind the careful walls of diplomacy and blood.
Instead, he turned fully toward you. "If you stood in my place," he asked, voice quieter now, stripped of ceremony, "what would you do?"
The question unsettled you more than any rebuke could have.
"My prince — "
"If you wore my name. My burden. What would you have done?"
You hesitated only briefly.
"I would have taught my nephew a lesson or two," you said lightly, attempting humor to soften the boldness.
His mouth twitched — barely. A faint distortion at the corner of his lips. Not quite a smile, but close enough to prove he understood.
Then you grew serious. "And I would have helped the knight," you added. "If not publicly, then quietly. Found men willing to stand beside him."
He interrupted you before you could continue. "And would you have stood beside him yourself?"
You blinked.
"If I were a man?" you asked.
"Yes."
"Then yes," you said without hesitation. "I would."
The answer surprised neither of you.
"And now?" he pressed.
You huffed softly. "Now they would not allow it. I lack the proper anatomy for their chivalry."
A startled sound escaped him — softer than laughter, but real.
He tilted his head slightly. "If you were in my place."
You stared at him as though he had sprouted a second head.
"Are you mad?" you blurted before you could stop yourself, finally realizing what he meant. Horror struck you a heartbeat later. You clapped a hand over your own mouth.
"My prince — forgive me — I did not mean—"
He shook his head, dismissing the apology. "I asked for honesty."
You lowered your hand slowly.
"If I were in your place," you said more carefully, "I would be furious. At my nephew, at the position... the choice between blood and justice."
His gaze sharpened.
"And what would you choose?"
You studied him now, truly studied him — the weight in his shoulders, the tension that had not left him since Aerion's declaration.
"You are contemplating it," you said quietly, finally putting the piece one by one. He wanted to side with Duncan, be one of his knights.
He did not deny it.
"The thought has crossed my mind," he admitted. "More than once."
"To stand for Ser Duncan?"
"Yes..." A pause. "The more I turn it over," he continued, "the more it seems the thing to do. The honorable thing."
The firelight flickered across his face, illuminating the conflict there : duty to blood, duty to justice, duty to the realm. You felt a chill that had nothing to do with the hour.
"My prince," you said carefully, "you are the heir to the Iron Throne."
"I am aware."
"It is dangerous."
"All things worth doing are."
You stepped closer without realizing it, lowering your voice instinctively though no one else remained in the chamber.
"I have seen the lists these past days," you said. "The broken bones. The blood in the sand. A trial of seven will not be sport. It will be slaughter."
He did not flinch. "I know."
"You are not some wandering knight with nothing to lose," you pressed. "You carry a kingdom's future on your shoulders."
"And what is that future worth," he asked quietly, "if it cannot defend what is just?"
The question struck deep. You searched for an answer and found none that did not wound.
"I agree with you," you admitted softly. "It would be right." A pause. "But right does not mean safe."
A faint breath escaped him... almost a laugh, though without humor.
"You sound as though you would rather I remain behind the walls."
"I would rather you live," you replied before you could temper it.
His eyes held yours — long, searching.
"My mind is not yet settled," he said at last. "But it leans."
You felt it then — that terrible, unmistakable clarity of who he was, a man who would bleed for principle, and perhaps that was the most frightening thing of all.
Targaryens were not known for goodness. If history allowed a few bright names, they were rare exceptions swallowed by the madness and ruin that followed most of the line. The books you had read about them were filled with dragons who burned too hot, kings who mistook cruelty for strength, princes undone by pride. And even in your own world, the good ones never seemed to last. The politicians who tried to stand upright in crooked systems were outmaneuvered, discredited, erased. Power had a way of devouring decency.
You found yourself worrying for Baelor in that same quiet, unreasonable way. You were not a monarchist. You never had been. In your world, crowns were symbols and relics, not necessities. But here (in this brutal, rigid land) there was no parliament to petition, no constitution to lean upon. The realm was its royal family. Their virtues and their failures shaped everything.
And perhaps Baelor could have shaped it differently. He listened, he had asked for your thoughts when he could have dismissed you without consequence. That alone set him apart from nearly every noble you had served under these stone ceilings. It should not have been remarkable — and yet it was.
You only hoped that kind of goodness would not cost him more than this world was willing to spare.
A/N: part 2 ( bc Tumblr didn't let me post the whole thing ....) PLZ COMMENT, I need thoughts and even ideas :)
summary : you survive a plane crash — only to wake up in a world that isn’t yours. they call it Westeros. lost and alone, you try to survive… until a joust goes terribly wrong and you save the heir to the Iron Throne, changing the fate of the realm.
words : 6k
warnings: aerion, blood and graphic violence, sexism and misogyny, medieval-typical attitudes, political intrigue, power imbalance, and other classic ASOIAF themes ect ect…
a/n : should I .... continue this ???
part 1
When Baelor rides onto the field to stand in defense of his nephew, a coldness settles along your spine so sharply it feels almost like a blade laid flat against bone.
You are positioned beneath the striped awnings of the noble pavilion, tasked with overseeing the trays and flagons as servants circulate among silk-clad lords and jeweled ladies. From this slight elevation, the lists stretch wide and merciless beneath the sun — churned earth already darkened in places where blood has soaked into it.
He has made his decision, and did not tell you.
After your conversation by the hearth, he dismissed you with measured courtesy, and that was the end of it. No hint, or promise. And now he is there.
Armor gleaming, lance lowered. The heir to the Iron Throne riding into what can only be called sanctioned slaughter.
Knights colliding in splintering bursts of wood and steel. Horses screaming. Men dragged from saddles only to rise again in mud and fury. What began as ceremony has dissolved into something far more primitive — not sport, not honor, but survival.
Your hands move mechanically, pouring wine into waiting cups, replenishing platters as though this were any other spectacle. The nobles murmur, gasp, applaud. They lean forward eagerly when a helm cracks, when a body falls.
Your gaze, however, does not wander. It remains fixed upon him, upon Baelor.
You must be a fool to even entertain the thought... You remind yourself of that often enough : you're a peasant. This isn't some ridiculous courtly romance or traveling play where a prince falls in love with a nobody and defies the realm for her. This is a medieval kingdom, titles matter. Blood matters. Marriage is not a game whispered about behind silk curtains.
Here, girls of sixteen are handed off like treaties, sealed with vows instead of ink. Gwin told you that herself, her tone practical and unsurprised. There is no room for fantasy in a world like this.
And yet...
You just can't help it. For the first time since arriving in this cursed place, you feel something stir in your chest, something reckless and alive. Of all the souls in this brutal court, of all the men you might have looked at and forgotten, you had to be attracted to him. The heir to the Iron Throne.
You watch him fight with a precision that borders on restraint. He does not rage. He does not posture. He moves with economy, shield raised, strikes measured ... not wasteful, not cruel. A man fighting because he has chosen to, not because he delights in it.
Across the chaos, you glimpse Aerion locked in vicious struggle with Ser Duncan, their movements frantic and uneven, pride driving them harder than skill.
And then — you see it.
Prince Maekar, composure shattered, drives forward in raw desperation. He calls out to his son — not as a prince commanding troops, but as a father terrified of losing his child. The sound of it carries even through the din.
Your breath catches.
Maekar does not strike gently.
The mace arcs through sunlight — a brutal, heavy sweep meant to clear space, meant to defend his son. It connects, the sound is sickening through the cheers. Baelor falls.
You gasp aloud before you can stop yourself.
A nearby lord turns toward you, goblet extended expectantly for more wine. His brows lift in mild irritation at your lapse. You murmur an apology and complete the pour, though you scarcely see the liquid entering the cup.
Your eyes are already back on the field.
He is not rising, you know that kind of blow.
You have seen concussions before. Skull fractures, the subtle stillness that follows when the brain has been shaken within its cage too violently.
At best, you think wildly, at best he is merely stunned.
At worst — the field dissolves into chaos. Trumpets blare, dust rises in thick choking clouds as men shout and converge. Somewhere amid the tumult, Aerion is forced to withdraw his accusation against Ser Duncan, the words wrenched from him more by circumstance than humility.
The trial is declared ended.
You are ordered beneath the stands at once, sent running with water and cloth for the wounded being dragged out of the blazing sun.
Under the pavilion, it is another world entirely.
The roar of the crowd fades into something muffled and distant. Here there is only blood, sweat, and the low, broken sounds of men trying not to scream.
As you hurry forward with a bucket sloshing against your skirts, one thought pounds through your skull with dreadful certainty:
You knew this would happen.
You spot the young prince (Egg? Aegon?) hovering wide-eyed as Ser Duncan is lowered onto a bench by two men. The giant looks half-dead already, armor torn away, his body a ruin of bruises and blood. And yet he still has the strength to groan, to speak.
Your instinct is immediate and violent: go to him. Help him, you idiot.
But you freeze, and remind yourself miserably once again : you are a maid. Not a surgeon who fell through time into some brutal, backward century.
"You shouldn't be here," you say gently to the small bald boy as you approach with the water.
"I'm his squire," Egg replies defensively, his high voice tight, small hands clenched into fists.
You sigh softly.
"The others..." Dunk groans, his voice rough as gravel. "Has anyone died?"
He looks toward Raymun Fossoway — the newly knighted one, bruised and battered himself, though not nearly as broken as Dunk.
"Beesbury," Raymun answers quietly, kneeling before him. "In the first charge."
Your eyes return to Dunk's side, and your stomach twists.
Steely Pate, the camp armorer, is bent over him, thick, unwashed fingers pressing into the torn flesh where the lance struck. You wince. The rings of mail have been driven into the wound.
"Gods be good," Raymun murmurs as he watches. "The lance points drove the rings deep into his flesh."
You shift the weight of the bucket on your hip, helpless, horrified. Every instinct in you is screaming.
"One moment I feel drunk," Dunk mutters through clenched teeth. "The next like I'm dying."
And that is when you snap.
"Stop touching him like that," you say sharply to Steely Pate.
All three men look at you.
Egg stares at you as though you have grown another head.
"It'll worsen the wound," you continue, forcing your voice steady. "He could die of infection."
"And what would a maid know of such matters?" Raymun asks, suspicion flickering in his eyes.
You bite back the urge to roll yours. To tell them you have spent years in operating rooms, that you have held a beating heart and a brain in your hands. That you have studied anatomy in sterile halls with lights brighter than the sun.
Because here, that would make you a witch.
"Because — " you begin.
But Steely Pate cuts you off with a dismissive shake of his head. "We'll get him drunk," he mutters, turning back to Dunk. "Then we'll pour boiling oil into it. That's how the maesters do it."
Boiling oil.
Your mind reels. You've heard of maesters — scholars, healers, teachers bound in chains of knowledge. There was one at Ashford Castle, you remember. There is always one, no matter how small the house.
And this is what they do?
You have kept your silence since arriving in this cursed place. When Clare complained of her back, when Gwin spoke of stomach pains or fevers spreading through the camp, you swallowed the truth. You never explained bacteria, never spoke of internal bleeding or organ failure. You were careful, too much knowledge would damn you.
Better a silent maid than a burned witch.
But this — this is too much.
You look at Dunk's ashen face. At the dirt grinding deeper into open flesh, the hands that will kill him in the name of healing. And for the first time since you arrived in this brutal world, you decide silence is no longer an option.
You are drawing breath to argue (to insist, to overstep your place yet again) when the murmur beneath the pavilion shifts and parts for another figure entering from the glare of the lists. The armor is unmistakable even through dust and shadow: blackened steel chased with the three-headed dragon. Not one of the lesser sons, not a hedge knight aping glory.
Royalty.
For half a heartbeat you fear it is Maekar, hard as the blow he delivered.But then the knight speaks.
"Wine. Not oil." The voice settles the question at once. Prince Baelor.
You feel something dangerously close to disbelief unfurl inside your chest. You saw the strike land. You saw the unnatural snap of his helm beneath the force of it. You saw the way his body absorbed the violence of that impact. No one walks away from that without consequence. No one.
Yet here he stands — though "stands" is generous. The sword he drives point-first into the ground is not ceremonial; it is structural. His weight leans subtly, almost imperceptibly, into the hilt as though the steel were an extension of his spine.
"Oil will kill him," Baelor continues.
The irony does not escape you.
He surveys the scene with concentration : Dunk pale and bloodied, Egg hovering stricken and stubborn, Raymun kneeling, Steely Pate bristling — and at last his gaze settles on you, absurdly still clutching your basin like a talisman of competence in a world that refuses it.
"I will send Maester Yormwell to see to him," he says, turning slightly toward the archway where the haze of churned earth still drifts. "When he has finished tending my brother."
There is that unmistakable affection of brothers when he speaks of him.
Behind you, Dunk groans, a fractured sound dragged up from somewhere deep.
You should remain silent, you should bow and withdraw into invisibility.
Instead, professional reflex overrides social survival. "And who is tending you, Your Grace?" you ask, the words emerging before caution can restrain them. "I saw the blow you received — it needs tending."
The pavilion stills, and fuck.
Baelor turns with slowness, the cracked visor obscures most of his face, yet something in the angle of his head suggests mild amusement (or perhaps curiosity) that a maid would dare such familiarity.
Before he can respond, Dunk drags himself from the bench, refusing dignity in favor of loyalty. With assistance, he forces his battered body upright enough to kneel.
"Your Grace," he rasps, voice raw with devotion. "I am your man. Please. Your man."
The plea is not political, it is profoundly personal. Baelor lowers a gloved hand to Dunk's shoulder in benediction.
"I need good men, Ser Duncan," he replies.
The cadence is wrong... not the vocabulary, but the delivery.
There is a thickness to his speech now, a subtle distortion as though the musculature of his tongue is laboring against invisible resistance. The vowels blur at their edges, consonants lack precision.
He reaches to touch Dunk's head with almost paternal gravity. "The realm — "
The sentence fractures, his posture wavers. Not dramatically or theatrically, but undeniably.
You do not think; you react. The basin slips from your grasp and strikes the ground, water spilling uselessly across trampled earth as you move to steady him. Your hands close around his left arm — solid beneath the armor yet strangely unreliable in its resistance.
"Your Grace," you murmur, lowering your voice so that it does not carry accusation, "you require a maester."
"Nonsense," he answers, but the word arrives softened at the margins.
His eyes attempt to focus on yours. They blink with effort, the tracking is delayed, as though his mind is negotiating distance through fog.
Behind you, Dunk is guided back to the bench.
Baelor remains upright only because the sword bears a portion of his weight.
"Ser Raymun... my helm... if you would be so kind."
Your mind arranges the data with merciless efficiency. The initial trauma did not incapacitate him. He rose, he spoke, he functioned. A deceptive stability. Now — minutes later — the decline announces itself in subtle neurological deficits: slurred articulation, impaired fine motor control, disequilibrium.
"Visor's cracked," Baelor adds faintly, his gauntleted fingers fumbling at the damaged metal. "My fingers feel... like wood."
Paresthesia.
Raymun steps behind him at once, calling to Steely Plate. "Good man, I need a hand."
Your thoughts accelerate into clinical clarity. The helm was tightly fitted; minimal interior space, rigid containment. The impact likely produced a depressed or linear skull fracture along the occipital region. The cerebellum could be compromised; his unsteadiness suggests involvement of coordination pathways. Swelling has begun — inevitably. Intracranial pressure rising within a confined vault.
The helmet, ironically, is performing an external tamponade. The metal encasement is stabilizing the fracture, maintaining uniform compression. It is preventing displacement.
If they remove it abruptly, they risk destabilizing the fragmented bone. They risk altering the pressure gradient catastrophically. If there is an epidural bleed (and the lucid interval strongly suggests it) then what is contained may suddenly expand without counterforce.
A rapid shift, herniation and then immediate collapse.
Raymun's hands find the clasps.
You tighten your hold on Baelor's arm, feeling the tremor beginning there, subtle but undeniable.
And you know, with dreadful certainty, that the next few seconds will determine whether the heir to the Iron Throne remains a living man, or becomes a cautionary memory whispered.
Steely Pate continues speaking (something about the steel having been driven inward, about how the metal was crushed and forced against bone) but the words dissolve before they reach you. They sound distant, muffled, as if you are hearing them from underwater.
"My brother's mace, most likely," Baelor murmurs faintly. He tilts his head toward you, and even through the warped visor you see it — that faint, crooked smile. "He's strong."
There is affection there, no bitterness, not even anger. Only the warmth of an elder brother remembering boyhood scuffles in sunlit courtyards instead of mortal blows on a battlefield. The tenderness of it nearly shatters you.
You see it clearly now — this is the lucid interval.
He is speaking, standing, and even smiling. And he is dying.
"Don't." The word leaves you before fear can cage it. It is not timid. It carries command — a tone entirely unsuited to a servant wrapped in dull grey and faded orange.
The men turn toward you in unison.
Baelor's eyes shift last. They snap toward you with effort, struggling to focus. They are unfixed, glassy, fighting to remain present.
You take a step forward, the pitcher hanging useless at your side.
"Do not remove the helm," you say again, slower this time, forcing each syllable to land with intention.
Ser Raymun exhales through his nose. "And what would a maid know of such matters?"
His tone is not merely irritated — it is offended. The natural order of the world has tilted, a servant is instructing knights.
Four pairs of eyes are on you now. You feel your pulse in your throat, in your temples.
But you do not retreat.
"If you remove it without preparation," you say carefully, "you may cause a sudden and fatal worsening of his condition."
The terminology means nothing to them — you see it plainly in their faces.
So you shift, forcing your knowledge into language they might grasp.
"The blow he took did not simply dent steel. It struck bone. The helm is holding what was broken in place. If you lift it carelessly, without keeping his head completely still, you may worsen the injury beyond repair."
They stare at you as if you have begun reciting incantations.
You step closer to Baelor now, ignoring the invisible line you should not cross.
"If you remove it," you continue, your voice tightening with urgency, "the pressure inside his skull will change. Whatever balance is holding will be lost."
"A maid. What would you know of skulls and pressure?" Raymun rebukes again, more agitated now.
And that is when something inside you tears loose.
"Shut the fuck up and listen to me, will you!" The curse cracks through the pavilion like a whip, and the silence that follows is immense.
You have just sworn at a knight of noble birth.... You know the weight of that, you know the danger, and yet, you don't care.
"He's in danger," you continue, voice no longer trembling but burning. "You remove his helmet without stabilizing his head, and the very thing keeping him alive may fail. The force that struck him likely fractured the back of his skull. The steel is compressing it! It is keeping the fragments aligned. It is containing the swelling."
Blank incomprehension flickers across their faces, but they understand the tone.
"You pull it away too quickly," you press on, desperate now, "and whatever is contained inside will not remain contained. Would you prefer his brain spilled into the dirt beneath your boots?"
The brutality of the image lands, you see it in the way Raymun's jaw tightens and eyes widen.
Baelor is staring at you in a strange, distant way.
"Let ... " he says softly. Your name is uneven on his tongue.
You step closer and take his arm more firmly as he sways.
"Do not speak," you murmur to him, lowering your voice just for him. "Save your strength."
His weight shifts against you more heavily now. The subtle tremor in his stance is worsening. His fingers, once steady on his sword, twitch faintly as though the signals between mind and muscle are faltering.
He tries to straighten, tries to maintain dignity, but you feel it — the gradual loss of coordination.
Raymun hesitates behind him, Steely Pate hesitates too. The unthinkable has happened: they are pausing because a servant girl has told them to.
Baelor exhales slowly. The sound is not quite right — slightly uneven.
You can see the signs accumulating now with horrifying clarity, and you know what comes next.
And you do not know how to stop it in a world without surgeons, without imaging, without sterile instruments or drills to relieve the pressure building inside a prince's head.
All you have is your voice, and the terrible knowledge that time is almost gone.
Then Baelor's knees buckle. The change is subtle at first (a deeper sway, his grip loosening on the sword ) and then his weight collapses fully into you.
"Your Grace — !"
You barely keep him upright.
His head lolls slightly inside the damaged helm, his eyes are no longer focusing.
"Lay him down," you order sharply, the authority in your tone no longer accidental but deliberate. "Flat, and carefully. Keep his head completely still."
They hesitate again — not out of defiance now, but uncertainty.
You twist toward a passing maid frozen near the pavilion entrance.
"You — find something rigid. A door plank, a table board, anything long and solid. Now. And clear a path back to the castle. He needs to be moved immediately."
She stares at you, wide-eyed.
"Go!" you snap.
She runs.
Raymun steps closer, agitation bleeding into his voice. "We cannot simply rush the Hand of the King about like a sack of grain—"
You round on him, fury blazing hot and clean.
"The heir to the Iron Throne and the Hand of the King are in our hands," you say, each word sharp as a blade. "If you do not wish to watch him die beneath this tent, then you will either listen to me or you will step aside — and if he dies because you chose pride over sense, that will be on you."
The pavilion goes still.
Raymun's jaw flexes, but he does not argue again.
Baelor is sagging now, barely conscious. A low murmur spills from his lips — broken fragments.
"Sons... the realm..." The words drift apart, unfinished.
"Do not let his head move," you instruct Steely Pate. "Not even a finger's width."
The maid returns at last, breathless, dragging a long, solid plank of wood — likely torn from a supply table. It will have to do.
"Good," you say, already kneeling. "Slide it beside him."
You lower Baelor carefully to the ground, supporting the base of his skull through the helm so that no rotation occurs. Every motion is slow, controlled. You guide the men with your hands.
"On my count," you say, breathing rapidly. "We lift together... keep his body aligned with his head. Do not twist him."
They obey. One, two, three. They raise him just enough for you to slide the plank beneath. You lay him flat atop it, adjusting his shoulders and hips so his spine remains straight.
He is no longer responding.
"Baelor," you say firmly, leaning close. "Your Grace, can you hear me?"
No answer.
You press two fingers carefully at his neck beneath the jawline, searching. There, a pulse. Still present, still alive! Strong, but slightly irregular.
"He still has a pulse," you say, more to steady yourself than them. "We move now."
Steely Pate takes one end of the wooden plank without another word, his large hands surprisingly steady despite the blood still drying on his knuckles. You move to the other end immediately, not allowing yourself a moment to think about the impropriety of it — a servant lifting a prince — nor about the tremor running through your arms.
Raymun positions himself near the prince's head, both hands hovering awkwardly near the damaged helm as if afraid even his breath might shift it. Egg stands frozen for a second longer, his wide violet eyes glossy with tears, staring at his uncle's slackened form as though the world has tilted irreparably.
But you need him.
He is the only one whose word will open gates and doors.
"Slowly," you instruct Steely Pate firmly. "No sudden movements. Keep him completely level." Then, without breaking stride, you turn your head toward Raymun and the cluster of maids hovering uselessly nearby. "Find a maester for Ser Duncan. Now. Do not let them pour oil into that wound."
Your voice does not waver.
"Prince Aegon," you call urgently, your breath already tight from the strain of holding the stretcher. "I need your assistance."
The boy startles as if pulled from a dream. He looks once toward Dunk (who, pale and sweating, nods faintly at him) and then Egg runs to your side, wiping at his face with the back of his sleeve.
They begin moving.
The path back to the castle forces you between the lists, where the dust of combat still lingers thick in the air. Nobles remain perched upon the stands, some standing now, craning their necks to see which knights still rise and which do not. Wounded men groan in the dirt. The festive banners flutter obscenely bright above a field that smells of iron and churned mud.
Ahead, you glimpse Prince Maekar kneeling in the mud beside his fallen son, helmet cast aside. A maester bends over the young man, murmuring urgently. Maekar looks up at the commotion — sees the dragon on the battered armor you carry — sees Egg running alongside you — and something primal and terrified tears from his throat.
"What is happening?" he shouts, rising to his feet.
No one answers. You do not answer.. There is no time to soothe a father while the Hand of the King's breathing grows shallower with every step.
The castle looms closer. The guards at the gate lower their halberds automatically when they see a group of servants rushing forward with a plank of wood. Their expressions harden.
"Halt — "
"Move!" Egg snaps, his voice breaking but carrying unmistakable authority. "That is Prince Baelor!"
The guards hesitate only a fraction of a second —(ong enough to see the dragon sigil, long enough to register the blood) and then they step aside.
You do not slow.
"Faster," you urge under your breath, though every instinct warns you that speed risks jostling the injury further. "We need a chamber. Clean linens. Boiled water. Vinegar, if they have it. And someone send for Maester Yormwell immediately."
You turn to Egg as you cross the threshold into the stone corridors of the castle. "Where is his chamber?"
He swallows hard and points. "Up the east stair — the second tower room."
"Show us."
The stairwell feels impossibly narrow as you ascend, each step measured and agonizing. Baelor's head shifts slightly despite Raymun's careful hands, and you feel your stomach clench at the motion.
He makes no sound now, not even the broken murmurs of before.
When you finally reach the chamber, you push through the door without ceremony. The room is large, tapestries drawn back to let in the afternoon light, a heavy carved bed dominating the center.
"Clear it," you order.
Servants scramble to strip the bed of decorative cushions and furs. Raymun and Steely Pate lift the plank carefully and transfer Baelor onto the mattress at your direction, keeping his spine aligned as best they can manage.
"Do not remove the helm," you remind them sharply.
They step back, breathing hard.
You turn to Egg, who stands pale and shaking near the foot of the bed.
"I need you to fetch the maester," you tell him firmly. "Tell him this cannot wait. And bring anyone he trusts to assist him. Go."
The boy nods and runs. You face Raymun and Steely Pate next.
"Find the largest basins you can," you instruct. "Fill them with water. Have it boiled. Bring clean cloths. As clean as you can manage. Quickly."
They exchange a look — uncertain still, but no longer arguing — and then they move.
For the first time since the pavilion, you are alone beside him, you step to the head of the bed and kneel.
Carefully, gently, you slide your fingers once more to his neck.
The pulse is still there, fainter now. You watch his chest.
You place your palm lightly against the damaged helm, stabilizing it without shifting it.
"Stay with me," you murmur under your breath, though you do not know whether you are speaking to him or to yourself.
Because now comes the part where knowledge alone may not be enough. And you are about to attempt to save a prince in a century that does not yet know how to save him.
You stand at the head of the bed, both hands braced against the warped helm, and for the first time since the chaos began there is no one giving orders but you.
The chamber smells of dust and old stone. Light spills across red-and-black tapestries, across carved furniture, across a prince who may die within the hour if you miscalculate.
You force yourself to breathe slowly. You do not have a drill. You do not have sterile instruments. You do not have imaging, suction, cautery, clamps.
You're fucked, but hopeful.
You have metal bent inward against fractured bone — and a skull that is likely cracked along the occipital line. The helm is compressing the fragments, preventing displacement. It is also containing swelling. But it is unstable containment. If removed without counter-pressure, the fracture may separate, the swelling may surge outward, and the delicate structures at the base of the brain (brainstem, cerebellum) may shift catastrophically.
You cannot simply pull it off... but you cannot leave it on forever either.
His pulse flutters beneath your fingers, he's warm, too warm even.
The door bursts open.
Maester Yormwell enters with two younger acolytes trailing him, chains clinking softly against his chest. He takes in the scene at once — you at the head of the bed, the dragon-helmed prince motionless, Raymun hovering like a sentinel.
"What madness is this?" the maester demands. "Why has the helm not been removed?"
"Because if you remove it carelessly, he will die," you answer without looking at him.
Silence follows.
You finally lift your gaze. "I need bandages. Thick linen. As many rolls as you have. Leather straps. Vinegar and Wine. And something small and sharp enough to cut metal ties, not pry the helm open."
One of the acolytes scoffs. "It is our place to tend him."
You do not raise your voice.
"If you remove that helm without stabilizing his skull externally, the fractured bone will shift. The swelling inside will worsen. He will stop breathing, and you will call it the will of the gods. I will call it preventable."
The maester narrows his eyes at you. "And how would you know this?"
Because I have seen it before, because I have watched patients talk and smile and then collapse from epidural hematomas, because I know the pattern.
Instead you say, "The blow was to the back of the head. He walked. He spoke. Now he fades. That is not chance. That is injury progressing beneath containment."
One of the acolytes whispers, "She speaks like a witch."
You turn your head slowly toward him.
"It's not witchcraft, you imbecile" you say evenly. "It is knowledge, science! And if you would rather let the Hand of the King die than listen to a woman, then stand aside and watch."
That lands.
Yormwell studies Baelor's breathing. The irregular pulse, the cracked visor, the blood under the helm now staining the bed.
"What do you propose?" he asks finally.
You exhale once. "We do not pull the helm upward. We cut it away in sections. Slowly. While maintaining external pressure around the skull."
You move your hands to demonstrate.
"We wrap his head first. Tight bandaging around the helm itself to keep the metal from springing outward suddenly. Then we cut the side straps and hinges piece by piece. As the metal loosens, we replace its support with firm wrapping."
The maester's brows draw together. He understands enough anatomy to follow.
"You intend to create an outer casing of cloth," he says slowly.
"Yes."
"And if the bone beneath is shattered?"
"Then the cloth becomes the brace."
One of the acolytes shifts uneasily. "And if she is wrong?"
You meet his gaze steadily. "Then he dies here instead of later."
No one speaks after that.
"Bring the linen," Yormwell orders.
The chamber fills with motion.
They wrap Baelor's helm first — thick, tight spirals of folded linen around the crown and sides, compressing the damaged metal gently inward so it cannot shift suddenly. You guide their hands, correcting tension, adjusting placement so pressure distributes evenly.
"Not too tight at the throat," you warn. "His airway must remain clear."
Wine is poured over your hands, over the cloth, over the metal edges. It is not sterile — but it is what this century has. When the wrapping is secure, you nod.
"Now we cut."
The maester uses fine metal shears normally meant for trimming chain links. Carefully, painstakingly, he begins cutting the side straps that secure the visor and cheek plates. You keep both palms firm against the helm, preventing outward expansion.
Each snip sounds thunderous in the silent room. Baelor still doesn't move.
His breathing stutters once — you freeze — then resumes.
"Slowly," you whisper. "Do not lift. Let it separate outward into the cloth."
Piece by piece, the helm loosens. A cracked cheek plate falls away into the bandaging.
The visor hinge snaps free, sweat beads along your spine.
Finally, only the back crown remains — the portion most deeply dented.
"This will shift," Yormwell warns.
"I know."
You press one hand at the base of his skull through the wrappings, the other steady at the crown.
"Cut."
The final metal tension releases with a dull metallic snap.
For one horrifying half-second, you feel movement beneath your hands, a subtle give, and you compensate immediately, tightening the linen, pressing evenly, preventing expansion.
The helm comes away in pieces. Underneath, matted hair. Blood. A visible depression along the occipital ridge, but the skull has not separated. You don't allow anyone to gasp.
"More linen," you say quickly. "We bind him now."
You begin wrapping directly over his hair and scalp, creating a firm, circumferential compression bandage to replace the helmet's structural containment.
"Not crushing," you instruct. "Supporting."
The maester watches your technique with dawning comprehension.
"You are countering the swelling," he murmurs.
"Yes."
When the final layer of linen is secured and tied firmly into place, you allow yourself to step back — but only just enough to slide your fingers once more to the side of his neck. You press gently, counting beneath your breath. The pulse is still there, faint, but steadier than it was before.
You lift your eyes to his face. He has slipped into unconsciousness fully now, no longer hovering in that fragile space between speech and silence. His skin has lost its usual warmth of sun-touched bronze; it is pale, almost ashen against the dark spill of his hair. Without the helm, without the tension of command in his posture, he looks younger. Smaller.
His mismatched eyes (one dark, one lighter, always so sharp and attentive) are hidden now behind closed lids.
You watch the slow rise and fall of his chest as if it is the only movement left in the world, then ou lean close.
"My prince," you whisper. "If you can hear me, breathe."
For a long, terrifying moment, nothing changes, then his chest rises — deeper this time. A slow exhale follows, the room collectively releases a breath it has been holding.
"He lives," the maester whispers.
"For now," you correct quietly.
Maester Yormwell watches you in silence, and the look he gives you has changed. The suspicion from earlier has dulled into something far more complicated — wary consideration, edged with reluctant respect. He says nothing as you begin tidying the space around Baelor's head, wiping away excess blood with cloth dampened in wine, ensuring the bandages remain firm but not constricting.
Raymun and Steely Pate have already withdrawn at the maester's instruction, likely to wash and steady themselves, find Dunk.
"I need help removing the rest of the armor," you say, glancing toward one of the younger acolytes. "Carefully. We cannot jostle him."
The acolyte kneels hesitantly beside you as you begin loosening the metal plates from Baelor's torso one strap at a time. As you work, you frown slightly.
"It sits too tightly across the shoulders," you murmur. "This wasn't fitted for him."
Egg, who has not left the side of the bed since returning, lifts his head quickly.
"I know that armor," he says, voice still thick from earlier tears. "It's Valarr's. My cousin's."
You pause for just a moment. Baelor's son.
You have seen him in these halls before — a quiet presence at his father's side, often tucked into the corner of the study while Baelor worked, or seated straight-backed at tournaments, watching with solemn attention rather than childish excitement. A polite, disciplined boy. Thoughtful. He carried himself with a restraint uncommon for his age.
And he looked so much like him : the same dark hair. The same mismatched gaze, the same air of contained gentleness beneath royal bearing.
Your chest tightens, you wonder where he is now.
"He must have lent it to him for the trial," Egg continues quietly. "My uncle did not bring his own. He never meant to fight."
The maester looks at you again, even more confused. "And how would you know a thing like improper fitting? of medicine?"
You open your mouth, already scrambling for something plausible (something that sounds harmless enough for a servant) but before you can form an excuse, the chamber doors slam open with a force that rattles the hinges.
Prince Maekar stands in the doorway.
Mud still clings to his boots, his face is thunderous, grief and fury barely contained beneath a veneer of rigid control.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demands, striding into the room. His gaze snaps to the bed. "I saw him rise. Why is he here? Why is he lying like this?"
You straighten slowly.
"You struck him with your mace, Your Grace," you say evenly. "The impact fractured his skull."
Maekar recoils as though you have slapped him.
"No," he says at once. "No. I did not strike him so."
"It was likely accidental," you continue carefully. "The blow was not meant to kill. But the force—"
"My brother cannot die," Maekar interrupts, his voice cracking despite himself. "He cannot."
And there, the iron façade fractures.
You do not see a prince then, no, you see a younger brother — the boy who once sparred in palace gardens beneath summer suns, wooden swords clashing in laughter instead of fury. The boy who had been lifted first into Baelor's arms before any of the others. The brother who rode beside him into war.
Baelor the hammer, and Maekar the anvil.
Different in temper, in bearing, in light yet forged together in the same fire. Bound not only by blood but by years of battle, counsel, rivalry, and unspoken loyalty. The kind of closeness that does not require softness to exist, the kind that is proven in steel and silence.
It is written across his face now — that history, that terror... but the vulnerability seals over almost immediately.
Maekar straightens, jaw hardening as if remembering exactly who stands before him. The chamber is full of witnesses. Servants, a maid who dared to command.
His silver-white hair hangs in disarray, streaked darker where mud and drying blood have dulled it to ashen grey. The smear across his cheek has not yet been wiped away. He looks less like a prince in that moment and more like a soldier dragged from the field — except for the authority that settles over him again like armor.
The grief is still there, he simply locks it behind his teeth.
"You presume much," he says coldly. "Who are you?"
You meet his gaze, though every instinct urges you to lower it. Almost unconsciously, you take a small step backward (closer to the bed, closer to Baelor) as if the unconscious man might somehow shield you simply by his presence.
And yet you position yourself beside him all the same, as though standing near the Hand of the King might lend you a fragment of protection.
His gaze drags over you slowly — from your face down to the plain fabric of your dress, to the sleeves rolled and stained from blood, to the unmistakable shape of you beneath it all. He takes in the absence of a chain at your throat, the lack of a maester’s robes, the simple shoes of a servant.
You are not a man, you are certainly not a maester... and in his eyes, that alone is accusation enough.
You tell Maekar your name. "I am a maid in service."
His eyes flash with disbelief.
"A maid?" His voice sharpens dangerously. "A maid laid hands upon the Hand of the King?"
You don't flinch. "I stabilized his skull and prevented further damage when the helm was removed."
"You presume he needed such intervention."
Maester Yormwell steps forward carefully. "Your Grace, I assisted her. Her method was... unconventional, but it was not without merit."
Maekar barely glances at him. "And you allowed this?"
"It was either attempt her method," Yormwell replies measuredly, "or remove the helm outright and risk immediate death."
Egg moves closer to his father, voice trembling but determined. "She knew what she was doing, father'She stopped them from pulling it off in the tent. Father, she saved him."
Maekar's jaw tightens. His gaze returns to you — assessing, furious, frightened.
"You speak of fractured skulls and swelling as though you have studied in Oldtown," he says. "You command knights. You curse at nobles. And you expect me to believe you are merely a maid?"
"I did what was necessary to keep him alive," you answer steadily. "What happens now rests with his body —" you pause," and the gods, if you prefer that phrasing."
His nostrils flare.
"Maester," Maekar says sharply, without looking away from you, "go tend to my son. Aerion remains unconscious."
Yormwell hesitates only briefly before bowing. "At once, Your Grace."
He casts you a fleeting glance (apologetic, perhaps?) and leaves with the acolytes.
Maekar's voice turns to ice. "Guards."
Two men appear in the doorway immediately, you watch confused.
"Take her," he orders. "To the dungeons."
Egg spins toward him. "Father — !"
Maekar does not raise his voice, yet it carries the burden of final judgment.
"Until I determine whether she is savior or sorceress, she will not walk freely within these walls."
"My prince —" you try, the words breaking apart in your throat.
This is not how it was meant to unfold. You were supposed to save him, you were supposed to step back into shadow once the crisis passed — not be dragged from the chamber like a criminal.
The guards seize your arms without ceremony. Their grip is firm, impersonal, and you flinch as iron fingers clamp around your sleeves, pulling you away from the bedside.
You twist just once, looking over your shoulder.
Baelor lies motionless beneath the tight linen wrappings you fashioned in haste and desperation. The bandages encircle his head where the crown once rested. His skin remains pale, almost translucent in the afternoon light, but his chest still rises and falls .
Alive... for now.
You have done everything you could, everything this century allowed. Now you must trust that it was enough.
A bitter thought slips into your mind; that perhaps this was always the bargain. That saving a prince might cost you your own life in return, that death may be the gift granted to the one who interfered with fate.
You swallow hard, tears burning at the corners of your eyes.
"My prince — " you try again, meant for the man on the bed rather than the one condemning you.
Egg is pleading now, his young voice rising in desperation as he clutches at his father's arm, insisting that you saved him, that you knew what you were doing. Maekar silences him with a look alone.
The guards begin pulling you toward the door.
You do not know what awaits you below, whether it will be questioning, chains, or something far worse. You do not know if Baelor will wake, you do not know if the realm will remember the maid who tried.
As the chamber doors close behind you, one fragile hope anchors itself in your chest: If death is coming, let it be swift.
And if the prince lives — let it have been worth it.
A/N :
this is how I grief … ( I hope maekar wasn’t too ooc)
I’m thinking about turning this into a full fic…. I’ll keep continuing it here as a reader insert for now, but if I publish it on AO3 or Wattpad, I’ll prob rewrite it as an OC…. maybe even adding other characters who survived the frauds and ended there idk… kinda Yellowjackets vibes…. That would be fun
but yh the idea actually came from a post I saw … this girl on Twitter was talking abt Baelor’s injuries like the head trauma and the mace wound he took and how those injuries realistically would’ve killed him. her dad’s a doctor apparently and he explained how it would’ve actually gone medically…. so yh that’s basically how this idea was born lol
Free Palestine and Fuck ICE. Nothing about this is surprising, this country’s hatred and desire to spread white supremacy and fascism through violence and terror is an aged as its flag, but it will always be Free Palestine and Fuck ICE. Fuck ICE. Free Palestine. FUCK ICE.
Summary: You’re Bonnie’s cousin who has recently moved to Mystic Falls to support her through navigating her powers. While in Mystic Falls, a chance encounter with Niklaus Mikaelson leaves him cursed to be in his wolf form until you say different. Through his frustration and ire, Klaus becomes determined to get you to change him back, all while being your good puppy.
Author's note: Okay, everybody, so I'm trying my hand at writing for a different character, and first up is Mr. Klaus Mikaelson himself. I personally believe that, as much of a brat that Klaus was, he just needed a lady to really put him in his place 😂. Plus, they spent so much time saying that Klaus liked people with power, so it never made sense that they didn't pair him with a witch or with Bonnie. As always, let me know what you all think, or if you even have any special requests!
Being a Bennett witch came with many advantages, but far more disadvantages. Sometimes, it felt like more of a burden to be tasked with this last name and to have these powers. You grew up hearing stories about your ancestors and the way each woman in your family shaped the supernatural world around you. You remember you and your cousin, Bonnie, sitting with your Grandmother Sheila and hearing all of the miraculous tales of magic in your family.
You remembered watching in awe as she showed you parts of your magic. You distinctly remember the longing that you felt to unlock and have access to your powers. However, the fated day on which you achieved your powers began your tumultuous journey into the supernatural world.
Don’t be mistaken. You loved your powers. You loved the flow of energy that coursed through your body as you connected with your magic. The pure euphoric pleasure that you got from completing a difficult spell. Your magic was perfect when you were the one who got to set the guidelines for it.
The part that you didn’t like was how other people felt like they had the right to dictate how your power should be used. You hated the moments where you connected with witches from the other side, and they tried to admonish you for doing things that didn’t “serve nature.” You hated when others only saw you as a source of magic–a walking daylight ring source. But most of all, you hated it when others, especially vampires, felt like they had unlimited access to your magic, all because of their abilities.
They always failed to realize that magic was the reason that they were even here.
Which led you here. Mystic Falls.
After your grandmother Sheila’s death and the arrival of the Original Vampires in Mystic Falls, you decided to move back to Mystic Falls for your cousin, Bonnie. However, imagine your surprise when you arrived in Mystic Falls to find that Bonnie’s misfit group of friends basically only saw them as their glorified personal magic servant–their magical negro. Despite your absence in Bonnie’s life, you were quick to step into the role of older sister. If there was one thing that you didn’t play about, it was your family. You had become an ire in the eyes of the Mystic Falls crew as you would consistently stopped Bonnie from abusing her magic on their behalf. There had been an increasing amount of confrontation between you and Damon, who had tried his hand at intimidating you. This ended with you nearly burning him to death and deactivating his daylight ring on various occasions.
The other object of your distaste was Klaus Mikaelson.
As beautiful as the man was, he was the embodiment of chaos and selfishness. His desire to create an army of hybrids often led him to constantly show up to threaten Bonnie’s friends if she didn’t agree to help, which brings you to the present moment. You had arrived home from your work at the Mystic Falls hospital to find that Bonnie was gone. After sending multiple texts to her and calling her phone, you focused your magic to locate her. Since you were older than Bonnie, you had unlocked much more of your power, including the darker parts.
Immediately, you could sense Bonnie’s presence at the Mikaelson household. Of course.
You got in your car and made the drive over to the gorgeous mansion. Walking up to the door, you could feel the overwhelming magic radiating from the house. You quickened your steps, worry filling your chest at the thought of Bonnie overwhelming herself.
Knocking on the door, a young man with dark hair and a devilish grin opened the door. ‘This must be Kol.” You thought to yourself. Bonnie had given you a quick overview and description of the Mikaelson siblings, so it was easy to deduce the difference between each of them.
Kol’s smirk widened, “Not that I don’t enjoy the view, but I’m assuming that you must be lost, love.”
You smiled back, “Not lost at all. I’m looking for my cousin, Bonnie, and if my magic serves me right, which it usually does, she should be inside your house.”
Kol’s eyes widened before scanning up and down your form. He noted the similar features between you and Bonnie.
“My, my. Who knew that all of the Bennett women were blessed with such beauty? I’m Kol by the way.” Kol said, holding his hand out to you. You placed your hand in his as Kol lifted yours to place a kiss upon it.
“While it is nice to meet you, I’d rather come in to collect my cousin.”
Kol smiled wickedly before ushering you in. As you walked throughout the house, you projected your magic to sense where Bonnie was in the house and to gauge if there was any distress coming from her. Rounding the corner, you were met with the backs of Bonnie and a blond man whom you assumed was Klaus.
Two other people sat on the couches, who you deduced were Rebekah and Elijah.
You frowned as you noticed Bonnie chanting and noted the visible tension and stress present in her body. “Bonnie,” you called out firmly. The young girl’s head snapped in your direction quickly. You could sense the unease that she felt at seeing you there.
“What are you doing here?” She asked quickly.
“I could ask you the same, but I can see that you’re being forced to use your magic to benefit someone else…yet again.”
Klaus whipped his head in your direction, and you noticed the smirk widen over his face. The dimples in his cheeks added to his beauty and charm, but right now, you didn’t have the patience for any seduction from the man. Stepping towards you until you were nearly chest to chest, Klaus looked down at you.
“Well, you must be the other esteemed Bennett witch that I’ve been hearing whispers about. I must say, love, it's quite a pleasure to meet you. Though I must add, all of the tales failed to mention your beauty.” You rolled your eyes at the older man.
“I would say that it’s an honor to meet you, but I don’t make it my business to lie. What I do make my business is anything that concerns Bonnie,” You stated. You saw Bonnie open her mouth to admonish you, but you quickly cut your eyes at her.
You navigated your eyes back to the hybrid whose eyes had hardened. You could feel the tension rise between the two of you as you spoke again, “Now that I’m here. I guess I’ll start by making myself clear on something. Bonnie isn’t your little lapdog or your servant. Her magic is her own. All of those little threats of killing her and her friends are over. I know you’re a man who doesn’t like to repeat himself, which is something that we have in common. So, do you understand me, love?”
Around you, the other three Originals watched in amusement and wonder as you admonished their brother. You were definitely a Bennett. Elijah leaned forward and prepared to stop Klaus if he decided to lay a hand on you.
You watched as Klaus’ eyes changed into the yellow gold that was associated with his hybrid side. You could feel the dark simmer of your magic as it flowed down to your fingertips.
Klaus’s hand moved to grip your arm, “It’s a shame that we won’t be best friends, sweetheart. I was hoping for a different outcome. You being here does put a damper on my plans, but I guess this gives Bonnie a little more motivation. Bonnie, darling, if you don’t complete my spell for me, your dear cousin will be killed, or maybe I should turn her into a vampire.”
Distress began to spill from Bonnie as she started to beg Klaus not to hurt you. Elijah arose from the couch as he started to also protest at Klaus’s claims of hurting you.
You continued to lock eyes with Klaus before a loud sound erupted throughout the room. Everyone stopped and listened to decipher what it was. Next, the sound occurred again before Klaus doubled over in pain and let go of your arm. A quick succession of wet snaps echoed throughout the room as everyone watched in horror as Klaus crumbled in pain. His bones snapped and twisted themselves into deformed shapes. He looked up in distress and pain as his siblings witnessed the skin begin to tear from his bones. Tufts of fur pushed through where skin was supposed to be. Claws started to appear where his fingers should be.
Klaus panted and continued to scream in pain, “What are you doing to me, witch?”
His question was directed at Bonnie, who shot him an even more confused look. She looked around at the other originals, “I’m not doing this!”
“I’m the one doing it.” You said with a saccharine tone.
Klaus glared at you while trying to use his speed to reach you. Despite his best efforts, the pain continued to intensify throughout his body. You leaned down and whispered to him, “Don’t try using your powers, you’ll only make it worse and continue to speed up.”
“Speed what up?” Elijah asked firmly. His eyes flickered between you and his brother.
“His transformation. Since he can’t behave himself or follow orders, then he’s going to learn to listen. Right now, his body is changing to his wolf form.”
Klaus’s eyes widened before he could feel the transformation further overtaking his body. Elijah grabbed your wrist and turned you to him gently.
“I apologize on behalf of my brother for his words and actions, but I must ask that you reverse it.”
You smiled at the older man before shaking your head at him. “I don’t think I’ll be doing that, Elijah. Besides, your brother’s actions aren’t yours to atone for. He made his bed, and now he’ll roll around in it till I decide to change him back.”
The Originals and Bonnie all watched with rapt horror as Klaus completely transformed into his wolf form. Truthfully, they hadn’t seen him change since the night that he became a hybrid. You all watched as the wolf shook his head and looked around the room with interest.
Klaus could see the world more clearly with his wolf vision. He looked down at his paws and felt the beginnings of a growl in his chest. He looked in your direction and could feel the anger and rage at what you’d done. Anyone with eyes could read the intentions of murder on the hybrid’s face. Elijah stepped in front of you to block Klaus as he started to prowl towards you.
He didn’t know what made him angrier: his brother choosing to protect you or the look of boredom on your face.
You stepped from behind Elijah and stepped towards Klaus. Klaus braced himself on his back paws and prepared to pounce on you before a sudden force started to block him from moving.
“You feel that? That’s the magic stopping you from hurting me, so no matter how much your brain tells you to hurt me, your wolf won’t let you. Until you can learn to listen or until I deem that you won’t be bothering me or Bonnie, you’re going to stay in this form.” Elijah sighed in exhaustion while Rebekah frowned, but there was some part of her that was greatly impressed with your abilities. Kol, on the other hand, found the entire situation to be very amusing and extremely sexy. It wasn’t every day that he got to see the power of your level, or even witness his older brother be put in his place.
You turned to Bonnie before motioning to the door, as your cue to leave.
You turned to give Klaus one more look, “I trust that you and I have an understanding. I know you’ll be mad for a couple of days, but the sooner you learn, the sooner I turn you back. In the meantime, be a good puppy for me.”
With one last smirk, you made your way out of the Mikaelson mansion with Bonnie in tow.
Elijah, Rebekah, and Kol all looked back at Klaus, who immediately began barking at your exit. They could only imagine the curses that flowed from his mouth, which were now being overshadowed by rough barks.
“Cheer up Nik, we’ll get you a nice doggie toy and doggie mat to go potty,” Kol teased.
There was a moment of silence before Klaus rushed at him and began to chase him throughout the house. Elijah sighed and rubbed at his temples as he heard numerous things start to crash throughout the house.
________________________________________
The following days at the Mikaelson household were hell. If it wasn’t the incessant barking from Klaus, then it was his stubborn insistence on trying to do things as if he were still in his normal form. He was seething and plotted all the ways that he could make you suffer once he turned back. However, there was a part of himself that found it very impressive that you managed to change him into his wolf form without uttering a word.
Right now, he had managed to leave the Mikaelson house and traveled through the woods until he made it to you and Bonnie’s shared home. He listened and could hear your and Bonnie’s conversation throughout the home. He heard the younger witch complain to you that she was scared of what he and his siblings were planning to do to you as a result of your actions. You reassured Bonnie and changed the topic of conversation. Before long, the younger witch announced that she was leaving to meet her friends at the Grill, no doubt going to brag about the recent spell that you had done to him.
Klaus felt himself become angrier at the thought. If the little Scooby Doo gang found out about his little problem, then they’d use it as a way of killing him. He could always bite one of them, but still, he didn’t like the possibility of one of the idiots having any advantage over him. Klaus snuck around the back of the house and watched to see if you were walking around the home. The door opened, and he found himself looking up at you. The more instinctual part of himself admired your form and beauty.
“Hi, puppy. You know it’s not very good to spy on people,” You said with a teasing tone.
You ushered him into the home, and he sat on the floor across from you, watching him with a look of indifference. He hated how beautiful you looked. He should be tearing you limb from limb, not fighting the urge to cuddle up against your legs.
You took a sip of your water and bit off a piece of your bacon, “I can see you’re still fighting those urges to kill me. That’s not very good, puppy.”
Klaus rolled his eyes and huffed. How he wished to have an actual voice to tell you off.
‘Must be so annoying not to hear the droning of your own voice, right?’
He looked around quickly before settling his gaze on you. You continued to watch him, and he noticed that your mouth wasn’t moving. Weird?
‘Neat trick? I can communicate with you telepathically. I figured that you would have a lot of things to say, but I’m not too fond of deciphering barks.’
‘I must say love. I am impressed with your abilities. I’m not sure that I know many witches who can do the same thing that you can.’
‘Flattery? Really Klaus? I thought we were well past that phase. You lost your charm with me the moment that you decided to threaten Bonnie and abuse her magic.’
‘Well, sweetheart, I won’t apologize for utilizing my resources. Now, why don’t you end this little game and turn me back, and I promise not to rip you or Bonnie’s throats out.’
‘Again with the threats? I guess you don’t really understand. You don’t get to make the rules here; I do. You don’t turn back until you learn to be a good little puppy for me. End of discussion.’
Klaus started to say something else and noticed that now he was back to only barking. Great. You got up from the table and started to clean your plate. You moved past Klaus, as if he were merely a pet. He hated how insignificant he felt now. You had made him into a pet.
Turning on his heels, he left your home and made his way back to the mansion. Sliding through the door that Elijah had recently installed, he found his siblings in the living room. He sat in the middle of the living room and willed his siblings to turn their attention to him. Elijah let out a puff of breath and started to speak without his eyes leaving his book, “I assumed you paid a visit to Miss Bennett, and she declined to turn you back?”
One bark sounded. Yes.
“Did you threaten her?”
One bark. Yes.
Rebekah rolled her eyes, “Bloody hell, Nik. She already warned you that violence wasn’t going to work. Why can’t you stop being an insufferable arse for a second, so that she can turn you back?”
Kol laughed at Rebekah’s outburst, “I don’t know, sister, I quite enjoy Nik this way. Less chatter.”
Klaus growled and prepared to lung. “Enough! Both of you. Niklaus, if you insist on chasing our brother through the home, I suggest you do it outside. I have no desire for your animalistic tendencies to continue to ravage through our home.” Elijah said.
Klaus huffed before leaving the living room. He made his way to his room before closing the door rather dramatically with his back paws.
________________________________________
The next few days, a pattern had formed between you and Klaus. He’d show up to the house, you’d let him in, and you would communicate telepathically. His anger and rage with you had begun to fade away each day that he spent with you. Then something weirder started to manifest with Klaus. He started to actually feel comfortable around you. The two of you had started a weird routine in which he would sit at your feet, or lay his head in your lap while you read on the couch.
On the days that you had to work in the hospital, Klaus would stay at home with his siblings and sulk until he was sure that you were home. His siblings had started to notice the difference in Klaus’s behavior and the calmness as he traveled to and from the house. They always assumed that he was going to see you, but they noticed that he didn’t have his usual air of violence after visiting you.
At the moment, the wolf casually peddled inside of your home. Upon reaching you in the living room, your nose furrowed in disgust.
“You stink. Haven’t you been letting your siblings bathe you?”
Truthfully, Klaus’s pride prevented him from asking his siblings for help with anything. Of course, they naturally fed him and made sure that he had all of his basic necessities, but he wouldn’t ask them to bathe him. To Klaus, the thought of asking for help made vile rise in his chest. His solution was to go down to the pond behind the mansion and bathe there.
You looked down at him and smiled, “Come on puppy. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Klaus followed behind you as you ushered him into the bathroom attached to your room. He had been in your room multiple times at this point. You pointed to the tub and watched as he hopped in. You moved through the bathroom effortlessly, showing Klaus that you had developed your self-appointed routine here.
Turning around, you held up the bottles for Klaus to see. He read the label, “Mane n Tail.” Why was there a horse on the label?
“Okay, puppy, this is the good stuff. It’ll get rid of any kinks in your fur, and then I’ll go in with some product to make your fur smell good.”
You twisted the knobs of the tub and grabbed the shower head. After testing the temperature with your hand, you aimed it at Klaus’s fur. Next, you popped open the bottle and began to lather the shampoo through his fur. For the next minutes, you massaged the product through his fur, and Klaus felt himself melt into your touch. Soft purrs left his mouth, which you didn’t acknowledge. A realization suddenly hit Klaus.
This was the first time in his life that he had been taken care of.
Sure, there were times when his mother would take her time with pampering him as a child, but after the incident with Henrick, her love and care for him became less and less. He found himself staring up at you in awe.
You laughed, “Ohh..puppy, has no one ever taken care of you like this?”
After the conclusion of his bath, you told Klaus to stand on the bathroom mat while you dried his fur. He followed behind you and sat in front of you as you took one of his paws in your hand. You picked up the nail file and started to shape his claws, which had become longer. Suddenly, you stood and walked over to your vanity before coming back with a bottle with a substance that looked white.
“This is just coconut oil. I’m going to put a bit on your paws because I refuse to let you walk around here all ashy.”
Klaus draped himself across your lap as you rubbed the coconut oil into his paws. This was truly a luxury that he couldn’t pay for anywhere else. He started to imagine what it would be like to be pampered by you if he were back in his human form.
_____________________________________________
Later, Klaus found himself sitting patiently in the kitchen as you maneuvered around to make yourself and Bonnie dinner. He would usually leave before the younger witch came home, but after his pamper session, his wolf craved to stay by your side.
A door suddenly opened, “I’m home! You won’t believe the day that I had today.”
Bonnie rounded the corner and let out a startled yelp at seeing Klaus sitting on the floor of her kitchen.
“What is Klaus doing here?” Bonnie asked, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
You held the spoon of sauce up to your mouth and tasted it, “Nothing really. He’s been coming here for days. Initially, it was his usual song and dance of threatening me, but now, he just sits and we talk sometimes.”
“You and Klaus? Talk?” Bonnie exclaimed, as if she couldn’t fathom the hybrid having a normal conversation without any violence present.
“He’s not going to hurt you, Bonnie. Besides, with the spell, it binds him from hurting you or me,” You replied while starting to fix your plates together.
You placed a piece of the meat on a plate for Klaus before handing it to him. He immediately started to dig in.
You and Bonnie sat down at the table to begin eating. Throughout the dinner, the younger Bennett girl continued to eye him skeptically as he sat at your feet. At one point, you reached down to caress his fur and he nuzzled against your hand. A noise of surprise left Bonnie. Had you truly domesticated the hybrid?
As if Mystic Falls couldn’t get any weirder.
_________________________________________
Things felt quiet in Mystic Falls. A little too quiet.
The Mystic Falls gang felt the anxiety the most. They couldn’t understand why there wasn’t much happening. Usually, they’d spend the week trying to survive from another psychotic attack from Klaus, but lately, there hadn’t been anything happening. To them, this meant that Klaus was planning something.
As usual, the meeting was held at the Salvatore household.
“I mean it doesn’t make any sense. No word from Klaus or any of the Originals. They have to be planning something!” Caroline exclaimed, waving her hands around to emphasize her point.
Damon poured himself another glass of scotch, “I hate to say I agree with Blondie, but we all know that Klaus likes the element of surprise. For all we know, he could be plotting to steal Elena right now.”
The group continued to throw out theories amongst each other about Klaus’s possible plans. The only one that didn’t chime in was Bonnie, who knew that at the moment, the hybrid was currently at her house being pampered by her cousin. There was a huge part of her that thought that she should share it with her friends, but the other part that remained loyal to her convinced her that it wouldn’t be a good idea. Besides, you appeared to have everything under control when it came to keeping the hybrid in check.
Bonnie didn’t realize that her name was being called until Elena waved her hand in her face. A blush crept on Bonnie’s face when she noticed that everyone had turned to look at her.
“Are you okay, Bonnie? You’ve been off since you got here?” Elena asked, her face full of worry.
“Umm..yeah, just going over spells in my head. Look, I really don’t think that Klaus is going to be bothering us for a while.” Bonnie said.
Damon eyed her skeptically, “What makes you so sure, witchy?”
Bonnie shrugged, “Just call it a hunch.”
Damon continued to narrow his eyes at Bonnie, and he suddenly appeared in front of her with his vampire speed. Bonnie glared at him and started to use her magic to give him an aneurysm. Damon stepped back from Bonnie, he didn’t really feel like enduring any of her witchy juju today. Bonnie rolled her eyes and announced that she was leaving.
As she left, her friends all watched her. Something was off.
“She knows something, and I have a feeling that it has to do with her pesky but beautiful cousin,” Damon concluded, and he was going to figure out what it was.
________________________________________________
At the Bennett household, you sat on the porch swing and casually swayed it back and forth. Klaus sat in front of and watched as you carefully made a leaf float in the air. To any unsuspecting person, they would look at the porch and assume that Klaus was just a dog. A very big dog, but a dog nonetheless.
‘You know puppy, I’ve been wondering about something.’
Klaus turned his head towards you as he heard your voice in his head.
‘Why is it that you were so insistent on breaking your hybrid curse and unlocking your wolf side, but you haven’t transformed past that night? I mean with a little persistence, I’m sure you could’ve transformed on a full moon. All of that work, for what? To just let it sit dormant.’
Klaus tilted his head to the side. That was actually a good point that he hadn’t considered. He had been so consumed with building an army of hybrids that he didn’t consider the fact that his wolf lay dormant within him. He turned his head back to you as you spoke again, ‘I can help you. Tonight’s a full moon if you wanted to actually tune into your wolf side and connect to nature.’
Klaus pondered the thought. The more distrustful side of him couldn’t help but question your intentions. Why would you help him willingly? You were the one after all who had trapped him in this current state? But…..in your defense, it was all of his fault, so could he actually blame you? There was also the fact to consider that you hadn’t hurt him this entire time. In fact, you had taken care of him. You could’ve easily used this situation to your advantage and killed him.
After much deliberation, Klaus nodded his head at you.
Later, as the sun began to set and the air chilled around Mystic Falls, you and the hybrid had set off into the woods. Klaus found himself looking around the forest wearily. What if there were other wolves here and they tried to hurt him….or you? Sensing his hesitation, you ran your hand gently through his fur, which calmed him down. You walked further into the forest until you came into a clearing.
You and Klaus faced each other, ‘Okay puppy, here’s your chance. With being in your wolf form, you’re a lot more connected to nature which means that you can feel much more of the environment around you. If you focused hard enough, you should be able to see waves of energy around you.’
Klaus followed your advice and closed his eyes. He started by letting the sounds of the forest enter his hearing and feeling the rumble of other creatures in the forest. When he opened his eyes, the world seemed much more different. There was a cacophony of colors that surrounded him. Swirls of gold, blue, and greens around trees and plants. Klaus felt his breathe hitch as he shifted his gaze to you. There was a soft light blue glow that swirled around your body. As he continued to look, he noticed that the other colors began to pull towards you and circle around your body.
‘That’s my magic. It’s also all of the other forms of magic that I can pull from nature.’
Klaus ventured forward and examined the environment around him. You watched him and smiled. It was nice to see him be so childlike and explore this new world. You suspected that this was the first time in his immortal life where he wasn’t scheming to have anyone killed or maimed.
‘You should go explore. The moon is at it’s highest peak which means your abilities will be at their highest too. I’ll be here when you get back.’
Before you knew it, the hybrid shot off into the night. Little did you know, the moment was being observed by two nosey, Salvatore brothers.
“I don’t get it. Why would she be out here on a full moon helping a mangey wolf?” Damon questioned.
Stefan frowned and went through multiple scenarios in his head. The wolf felt familiar to him, yet he couldn’t place it. After a couple of minutes, Stefan widened his head and turned to Damon, “That isn’t just any random wolf. It’s Klaus.”
The brothers both frowned at each other. Why was Klaus in his wolf form, and why were you helping him?
Only one person would know the answer.
Bonnie Bennett.
____________________________________
The next day, the Mystic Falls gang called an impromptu meeting. Only this time, the said meeting would be more like an ambush.
They needed to find out what Bonnie knew about her cousin and Klaus.
As Bonnie walked in the house, she knew that she should’ve followed her instincts and turned around. Stepping into the living room, she was met with five pairs of eyes all staring at her, each ranging from judgemental to worry. Yep, she should’ve followed her instincts.
Damon was the first to speak up, “You know, BonBon, as your resident BFF, I’m a little hurt that you didn’t tell us about Klaus and your cousin.”
Bonnie felt her eyes roll before she knew it, “What are you talking about, Damon?”
Now it was Elena’s turn to speak, “Bonnie, you don’t have to lie to us. Damon and Stefan saw your cousin in the woods last night with a wolf. That wolf is Klaus, right?”
Bonnie stared at everyone around her. Her loyalty to you was stronger, but she didn’t like the thought of lying to her friends either. Sighing, she nodded her head.
A series of sounds of disbelief sounded out in the room before everyone started to throw questions out.
“Stop!” Stefan shouted. He looked towards Bonnie, “Bonnie, how is Klaus a wolf right now?”
“My cousin changed him into his wolf form a couple of weeks ago. She found out that he was using me for one of his spells and she changed him. He’s been coming around the house here and there, but he can’t attack either of us due to the spell that she cast.”
The group all let Bonnie’s words settle into the room. Not only did this mean that Klaus was more vulnerable, but it meant that you were a lot more powerful than they accounted for. If you could turn Klaus into a wolf like it was a normal thing, then what other things could you do with your power?
Alaric looked around the room, “I think it’s pretty clear what we have to do. We have to kill Klaus while he’s in this form. One white oak stake should handle it.”
Damon nodded before stopping, “Could be a good plan, but it’s risky because if he bites any one of us, then it’s no bueno. Plus, you seem to forget that he has a Bennett witch by his side.”
“Sure, but we also have one.”
Everyone turned to look at Bonnie again as the young witch looked at them in disbelief. “You want me to use my magic against my cousin?! No way.”
“Bonnie,” Elena and Caroline interjected.
“This is Klaus we’re talking about Bonnie. He’s been nothing but trouble since he got here. Him and his family. I mean he killed Elena and Tyler! This could finally be our chance to get rid of him permanently,” Caroline said.
Bonnie pondered the thought in her mind. It was true that Klaus and his family had been nothing but trouble since they had arrived in Mystic Falls. There had been countless innocent lives lost because of his chaos. Maybe this would finally be their way of freeing themselves from his reign of terror. Besides, how could they live life if it was always in fear of what Klaus would do to them? On the other hand, Bonnie thought about your relationship with Klaus. As much as she hated to admit it, she could see the bond that had formed between the two of you. But, what was stopping Klaus from trying to kill you once he turned back?
“Okay, I’ll help you, but my cousin doesn’t get hurt.”
_________________________________________
When you woke up the next day, something felt off. The air felt too tense and thick with a layer of humidity. There was a distinct twisting that settled deep in your core and there was a part of you that started to feel concerned about Klaus. Your puppy.
You started your routine as usual. You fluffed out your curls and chose a comfortable outfit. It was one of those rare days when you were off from working at the hospital. You walked down the stairs and listened to the creaks of the house and the whispers of nature around you. As usual, you kept the door slightly ajar for Klaus’s arrival. As expected, the hybrid waltzed into the house like he was meant to be there. The wolf quiety moved around you and through your legs. He had recently taken to wrapping his tail around one of your legs.
Sensing that something was wrong, he began to speak to you through your bond, ‘Why the frown, love? Anyone that you need me to kill?’
You laughed slightly before kneeling in front of him, ‘No killing. There’s just something that feels off about today.’
‘How so?’
‘I feel like something is going to happen, but I can’t quite pin it down.’
Klaus tilted his head and tried to decipher what it could have possibly meant. He learned long ago to never look past a witches’ intuition, especially when it came to bad omens. Before he could think further on it, he felt a strong surge of pain radiate through his body. A loud whimper sounded out as you watched Klaus double over in pain. He eyed you in distress and you frowned.
“I’m not doing this,” you said.
“I am.”
You looked over and saw Bonnie standing the doorway of the kitchen. She held her hand out towards Klaus and chanted under her breath. You were confused. Why was Bonnie hurting Klaus if she knew that you had it under control? Before you could think further, Damon Salvator waltzed past Bonnie and made his way towards Klaus. One by one, different members of their friend group entered the house. Last was Elena, who handed a white oak stake to Stefan.
You stood to stand in front of Klaus before you felt something forcing you down. You looked towards Bonnie who had started to use her magic on you. Damon pulled out a needle from his pocket and struck Klaus with it. The wolf howled in pain. Damon smirked at you, “Wolfsbane and vervain. Our own special concoction.”
Bonnie called your name, “It’s for the best. You may not see it this way, but you don’t know Klaus. You don’t know what he’s capable of. All of the people he’s killed. All of the lives that he’s ruined. We have to kill him or he’ll continue to hurt innocent people.”
“I know exactly who and what Klaus is. He’s a monster. He kills. He destroys peoples’ lives and he brings death when he comes, but you know who else does that, little cousin? Your friends. How many lives have your friends taken? How much destruction and pain have they caused since they got here? Hell, Bonnie, Grams wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for your friends! How many times have they thrown you in harms way to protect their little doppleganger?! Wake up Bonnie! You’re only valuable to them if it means that they get what they want from you,” You yelled.
You could feel the magic inside of you start to build and thrash inside of you.
The next series of events can only be described as pure chaos. Stefan moved forward with the white oak stake to attack as you reached out and began to give him aneurysms. The vervain and wolfsbane worked through Klaus’s system, but he was determined to not go without a fight. Rising weakly on his legs, he moved to attack Damon and Alaric. Despite, the fact that Bonnie was using her magic on you and Klaus, you could feel her getting weaker, and you used this to your advantage. You raised your hand and shoved Bonnie backwards. The Bennett household was pure chaos as you and Klaus worked in tandem to stop him from being killed. There was a baited moment where thing started to move in slow motion. You can’t recall how it happened, but one moment, you clocked the white oak stake in Stefan’s hands before it was in Damon’s. You watched as the vampire raised it towards Klaus, and without thinking, you were suddenly taking the blow instead of Klaus.
The entire room went silent as everyone stared at you in shock. Damon, who had stabbed the stake into your chest, gazed at you in surprise. Initially, you didn’t feel the pain from the wound, but then it all flooded to your system as you felt the blood start to rush towards your mouth and cover your body.
Suddenly the world became blurrier and you felt the weight of gravity pull you down.
As you landed, you only uttered one word, “Klaus.”
You could only hear the faint sounds of screams from Bonnie and the sudden sickening cracks of bones echoing before everything faded to black.
__________________________________________
It’s funny the way that things in life can happen. With over a 1000 years of life under his belt, you were by far the biggest surprise of Klaus’s life. You had managed to trap him in his wolf form, but you weren’t cruel with your punishment. You actually showed the hybrid the beauty of embracing his wolf side and connecting to nature.
He’d be forever grateful for the care that you had shown him.
After you had fell to the ground, the hybrid felt a piece of his heart shatter as he watched the life fade from your bodies. Before he could focus, he felt the cracking of his bones start to happen. It appeared that since you were dying, you spell to transform him had inadvertently changed him back to his regular human form. Klaus felt rage rise in his chest as he looked at all of the faces present in the room. Normally, this would be the part where he’d tear everyone in the room limb from limb while making them suffer….but not now. Now, his only focus has been your form on the floor. Leaning down, he could hear the faint sound of your heartbeat in your chest. Without thinking, he bit into his wrist and angled your head so that the blood would flow into your mouth. As his blood entered your system, he gently removed the stake from your chest. Klaus watched as the wound slowly started to stitch itself back together.
He moved his arms to pick you up and cradled you to his body, “It’s okay love. I have you now.”
Moving through the solemn faces, he looked back towards the Mystic Falls gang, “I hope that you all know that this will warrant retribution. Not because you hurt me, but because you hurt her.”
With one last look, he turned and sped from the house.
He felt the effects of the vervain and wolfbanes in his system, but he couldn’t care about that right now. The only thing that mattered was you. Once he arrived at the house, he kicked the door open and walked in with your body cradled closer to him. Elijah, Rebekah, and Kol all sped into the living room as they smelled a fresh scent of blood enter the room. They all frowned and stared in horror as they noticed your body in their brother’s arms. Immediately, their first thought was that their brother had attacked you, but those thoughts were quickly squashed once they seen the despair and anger on their Klaus’s face.
“What happened?” Elijah demanded.
He had started to become fond of you, once he noticed that your intentions for turning his brother weren’t cruel, and that you had made no moves of harming Klaus.
“Those blood idiots ambushed us. They had one of the white oak stakes and she was trying to protect me, and she was stabbed in the process.” Klaus looked down at your face which was still pale from the blood loss, but you looked more lively than when you were laying in your blood at the Bennett home.
Klaus continued to gaze at you, “I gave her my blood.”
It was his siblings turns to look at each other now. They all knew how selfish Klaus had been over the centuries when it came to sharing his blood with others, especially when healing them. If he has willingly given you his blood, then it solidified his care for you.
Rebekah stepped forward, “Why don’t you take her to one of the spare rooms, Nik? I’ll get her cleaned up.” Klaus looked up at his sister before nodding and handing her form over to you.
He watched as Rebekah carried you up the stairs.
“As sweet as this all is, brother. I think we’d all prefer it if you put some clothes on now. Plus, we wouldn’t want you to scare the poor girl when she wakes up,” Kol quipped.
___________________________
Days passed as your body recovered. Klaus figured that it would take some time for your body to heal considering the severity of the wound and the amound of blood that you had loss. After the second day, Bonnie had came by to visit you. The selfish and cruel part of Klaus wanted to deny her any entry to seeing you. She was one of the reasons that you were laying here, but he knew that you wouldn’t want to see Bonnie upset, so he allowed her in.
Bonnie sat next to you and held your hand in hers. Klaus could hear her quiet sobs and pleads for you to forgive her. She had stayed by your side the entire day and had even fell asleep tucked into your side. Even a blind man could see how much Bonnie cherished her relationship with you and how protected she felt with you. The fact that she had almost lost you due to another attempt to aid her friends felt like a wake up call.
The next day, Klaus walked into the room where Bonnie continued to sit by you. He sat a breakfast tray in front of the young witch, who eyed it skeptically. “No need for the eyes, love. I have no desire to poison you. My darling little witch would never forgive me if any came to you under my watch.”
Klaus rounded the other side of the bed before sitting in the chair next to the bed. He leaned forward and held your hand in his. Without thinking, he leaned forward to place a kiss upon your forehead and whisper words into your ear. Bonnie watched the entire interaction and was struck with the realization that Klaus Mikaelson, the big bad hybrid, was in love with you.
This wasn’t the same Klaus that she knew. The Klaus that she knew would’ve use this opportunity to kill you while you were sleeping, but this Klaus, he watched you as if you were the most precious jewel in the world.
As Bonnie gathered her things to leave, she quietly thanked Klaus before stating that she would be back later to visit you again. She had also remarked that she could feel your magic in the room, which meant that your magic was assisting in healing your body.
Later, Klaus continued to sit by your side. He had even taken to drawing you as you slept. Before he knew it, he had laid his head on your lap and nuzzled close. It was similar to when he was in his wolf form and would cuddle into your lap. Time faded as he let himself fall asleep on your lap. It was the gentle brushing of fingers in his curls that made him wake up.
He quickly looked up and saw your eyes gazing down at him, “Hi, puppy.”
Klaus felt a smile creep upon his face. You smiled and ran your fingers across his dimples. Gently, he moved to lay beside you and pulled you to lay across his chest. His hands found your curly hair and absentmindely twirled one of the curls around his fingers.
You looked up at him. Without saying anything, you moved your head closer until you were kissing him. Pulling back, you whispered, “Good puppy.”
Klaus felt a purr radiate through your chest. It all felt right. In this moment, everything was just as it should be. No destruction. No chaos.
Just a witch and her puppy.
And Klaus had to admit, he liked being your puppy.
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